


Weasel and Stoat

by OldDVS



Series: Weasel and Stoat [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animagus, M/M, Stoats, Weasels, skip this one if you are arachnophobic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-01-31 19:30:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldDVS/pseuds/OldDVS
Summary: The joys and terrors of discovering one's animagus form are set against a background mystery--what is happening to the Forbidden Forest?  There are spiders involved.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes for Weasel and Stoat
> 
> Another story written a long time ago before the books were finished and so even more AU than it started out to be.
> 
> Another in those AU stories where the last two or three books of Harry Potter didn't happen, and Dumbledore is still headmaster. It takes place in Harry's seventh year. In the spring. Everyone is assumed to be of age. 
> 
> Our stoat's appearance is based on a lovely print called, I think, White Ermine, by an artist named Stalio (you can Google it to see the print). This beastie is adorable, and although it is my understanding stoats really don't eat fruit all that much, the pose with the rose hips makes a wonderful visual image. Don't you just want to nuzzle his little stoaty tummy?
> 
> The Internet is wonderful for research, but in the matter of mustelidae there is considerable amounts of conflicting information. This let me pick and choose what I wanted that fit with the plot, but I can't guarantee the accuracy of all of it. Most sources say weasels and their relatives are mostly loners. I ignored that bit. I also had to research spiders. Not as fun. And snakes. Ditto.
> 
> Ron Weasley's appearance in this story is that lovely long-haired 70's look that R.G. was sporting between early movies. Only older. In this story, Ron also has a very nuzzle-worthy tummy.

Stoat, and Weasel  
By Tara Tory

 

Bound, bound, bound!

It was marvelous! He extended his legs, striving to leap higher each time, to arc into the air and then down, again and again. The feel of his claws meeting the dirt, the push of his muscles, it was all glorious, almost as good as flying.

With each leap he focused ahead, because when he hit the earth his view was hidden by the stems of grasses and flowers. A different world down there, a tangle of browns and greens that flickered and changed with each jump. He was tearing across the meadow, heading for the trees. 

Trees. 

He remembered. Trees hid bad things. He turned, curving his trajectory until he was leaping parallel to the forest instead of toward it. Short leap. Long leap. Short leap, twisting in the air to adjust his direction, to keep just the right distance from the trees.

Rock ahead! He strained and reached the top of it, poised for a moment before launching himself onwards again. Go, go! 

What was…a mouse! A flash of brown, almost the color of dirt, and now he had it in his mouth, biting down, gobbling it up in moments. It had hardly slowed him down. He raced onward.

You ate a mouse, a voice in the back of his head said scornfully. You ate a small dirty rodent. You ate it.

Well, of course he had. It was tasty. No enough, mind you. He needed more food. He looked for another mouse, all the while keeping up his breakneck speed. There! Mouse! He leaped.

Not mouse. He wasn't even sure of what it was. Not rat. Not mole. Vole? Didn't matter. It was small and warm and his mouth closed on the neck which neatly broke under his clamping jaws. He'd been aiming for the base of the skull and missed his strike by a few hairs, but it was close enough. His first larger-than-a-mouse, he thought proudly.

He ate most of it, leaving crushed skull and fur and spine behind in the grass. The full stomach slowed him down. He traded in the wild careering for a slink between the stalks of weeds and grasses. Oozing through the vegetation, making sure that there wasn't a tremble or a twitch to show that he was passing by, he made his way along the edge of the forest.

He explored, nosing under a rose bush gone wild, and then he wiggled into a patch of dry grass from the year before. There were paths there, where small animals had trod during the long winter. No small animals now. He nosed his way out and wiggled free so that he could investigate a small rut where there were fresh blades of new grass. He tasted one. 

Mouse! He pounced. His stomach was full, though, and so he played with it, tossing it up so that he could pounce on it again as it fell. It was soon a battered lump. He flung it high one more time and then froze when it did not fall to earth again. He looked up.

Uh-oh. 

A giant weasel stood there. It towered above him, ginger brown, with a creamy stomach and whiskers, wide shoulders, and keen eyes. Unblinking eyes, fastened firmly on him. The weasel was swallowing, and the fate of the mouse was obvious. 

Gulp. Weasels weren't at all particular about what they ate. The weasel drew back and up on its haunches. It looked so big! Twice as long as he, thick with muscle. It looked mature but young, solid and….

Eyes on the weasel, he crouched a little, and his tail twitched. The weasel had the same black tip on his tail and was not likely to fall for the distraction, but he twitched it again. Still focused on the weasel, he hunched down, muscles bunching, ready to leap.

But instead of leaping, he was leaped upon. From out of the shadows of the forest sprang a spider. It looked huge, even bigger than the weasel. Each of the fat hairy legs was as big around as a stoat. As spiders from the Forbidden Forest went, it was small, no larger than a spaniel. It was practically a hatchling, and hungry. The nasty fangs reached out, gnashing, wicked. The mouth parts moved as if already chewing a hole in his hide. 

He launched himself backward, falling over his own feet and turning half a somersault before rolling, his legs working frantically for purchase against the ground.

The weasel screamed and also leaped aside, and the spider missed the strike, although one of the scrambling legs knocked the animal half off his feet, to roll helplessly for a few feet before it scrambled up, hissing and chattering in anger. Quickly the opponents each lunged again, the spider to strike and the weasel to get out of range. 

A little stoat should have run like hell. Letting two enemies cancel each other out was survival. But the fight fever came rushing though him, the desire to destroy the enemy, and in this case, the enemy was the spider. It was facing away from him, rearing back, braced on the back legs in order to spring forward at the weasel again. 

He launched himself at the monster, his claws scrabbling, his teeth instinctively going for the killing bite on the base of the head, where decent animals kept their spine. But spiders kept their heads attached to their waists. The sharp stoat teeth came together and sliced through tissue, but the arachnid brought a leg over and forward and swept him away, the action flinging the little body up against a sapling. There was no time to lay there and recover. He hauled himself to his feet, shook his head to clear it and circled, staggering, to find another vantage point to join the fray.

The weasel had taken advantage of the distraction provided by the stoat and attacked. The style of fighting was quite similar to that of his smaller cousin, but more effective given his greater weight. It hit the spider from the side, the balled up weight landing directly on the junction between the two parts of the body, where the stoat had just bit. The connection, the pedicel, wasn't designed to take a direct hit when already damaged, and there was a thump and then a tearing sound. The spider was divided from its abdomen, the juncture trailing a greenish goo from each side. 

Although mostly separated from its rear, the spider did not admit that it was dead. The front part scuttled forward, trailing a line of sticky fluid, while the abdomen twitched and loosed short barbs of stiff hair, like randomly shot arrows. Fortunately, the missiles missed both the animals. The abdomen twitched again and then fell still. The front of the spider continued to advance, listing to one side but still very moving determined and with ferocious intent.

The weasel ducked to the side, circling, waiting for the thing to die. The legs waved wildly, the mouth moved, the black eyes glittered. 

The stoat knew the weasel was not the danger that the injured spider was. He ignored the weasel, turning on the pivot of one hind foot to keep the injured spider directly before him. The half-beast rushed at the him, faster than he ought to be, the chelicerae, fang-tipped, reaching out. Leaping back, then desperately to one side, the stoat chattered, nervous because it was making feints at him. It should die! He wanted it to die now! Now! He screamed at it when it dashed at him. It loomed over him, blocking out the sun. Ducking under one of its legs, he avoided it again, by the width of a hair, but the venom of the fangs splashed onto his fur. 

He ran, the spider coming after him. The course was taking him towards the Forbidden Forest and he knew it could be death to run into the trees. There could be others waiting there. Bigger spiders. There were spiders in the forest twenty times the size of this one. So he dared to take a curved course, heading towards the grass again, and ran harder. 

It didn't catch him. The arachnid seemed to trip over something, and tumbled to the ground, plowing up dirt. The legs were flexing, contracting and then extending in chaotic spasms which he did not stay to watch. He ran. 

He realized he was not alone in his mad race when strong jaws closed on his neck. The weasel! The weasel had him! He was going to die!

But to his amazement, the jaws did not bite down, but only held him firmly. His feet left the ground. The weasel was carrying him as a mother carried a baby, while running at break-neck speed. Most unfortunately, the weasel was not quite tall enough, and his smaller stoat body was hitting the ground with every third step. Instinct made him curl up and also hang limp, but trying to do both at once was impossible. He couldn't move his head without hurting himself. He considered bringing his hind feet up more; he was sure he could rake with his claws, maybe with enough power to cause the other animal to drop him. 

And maybe not. He waited, his stomach sick with fear, for a stumble or a pause which would let him escape. At last the jaws let go, and he twisted, stretching his legs to hit the ground running.

Splash!

He struck the water with his body extended, his feet out to push off the moment they touched earth. But there was no earth, only the swift water of the small stream which only existed in the spring and early summer. It poured melting snow water from the mountains into the Hogwarts lake, and it was icy cold.

He screeched, struck out, screeched again as he tried to swim and was dunked by the thick body of the weasel, who had leaped in after him and seemed to be trying to drowned him. He flailed, was grabbed once more by the back of his neck, was plunged under the water several times, then held against the side of the bank.

Panting madly, collapsed against the muddy bank, he waited for the insane weasel to kill him at last. But all it seemed to want was to keep him in place, not drown him.

Eventually, Draco's human mind, which had been lost in the stoat-ness of his adventure, shook itself free of the adrenaline and the fear and began to understand. Spider venom and some of the body fluids of the spider had soaked into his fur. The weasel was letting the stream wash him. 

Clever weasel. But if they spent much longer in this cold water, they would die. He tried to struggle free. The weasel dunked him under the water one more time and then let him go. 

He made it up the bank and lay there in the mud, his lungs fighting for air, his mind struggling to remember how to reverse the animagus transformation. He couldn't think well enough to remember. His little body began to shiver. He didn't protest at all as the weasel snatched him up by the neck again. He closed his eyes, his brain and his body numb. 

The weasel stopped suddenly and then headed down a hole under a curving tree root. They were about three weasel-lengths beneath the root when the tunnel became narrower, and turned before becoming wide again. He was dumped into the middle of a truly marvelous weasel nest. There was dry grass in a bowl shape, packed with lots of soft mouse fur, and some other bits of feathers and fuzz. Not that he could actually see anything underground this way, but his nose was even more keen than he has suspected.

A paw came down on his shoulder. A raspy tongue drew itself down his flank. The bloody weasel was licking him! Unfortunately, it felt great and he forgot to protest as the tongue swiped over his hide again and again. It was warm. Nice. Felt like he was a kit again, which confused him utterly as of course he had never actually been a baby stoat. He'd been a baby wizard named Draco and he had…but his stoat memory said he had been a baby once, washed by his mother's busy tongue. The weasel was as meticulous as a mother, licking every inch of him. He wiggled and gave a squeak as the tongue was drawn over his balls. It didn't discourage his huge ginger nanny, who shifted his hold, planted a big foot on him, and went on with it.

At last the weasel paused to give a moment's attention to his own wet fur, then went back to stoat-licking. After than he moved back and forth from attending his own body and ministering to the body of the other, until the stoat was mostly dry, at which point the weasel finally turned his total attention to his own dampness. 

While the weasel was busy licking his tail, Draco explored. It was a fantastic burrow. He wondered if the other had found it, or built it. There were four little offshoots. The longest one was another exit, which came up under a flat stone in the middle of a clump of thick grass. 

One offshoot from this tunnel was a privy; it reeked of weasel piss. He wrinkled his nose and explored further. Two of the chambers were storehouses. One of these was empty except for a few sticks, and the other held a pile of mice, reasonably fresh--probably caught that morning--and wonderfully alluring. He wondered if he dared help himself. He was starving. 

After thinking about it for a moment, he decided that the weasel owed him a meal for having snatched his own mouse from him. Carefully, he picked the smallest and most delicious looking morsel from the pile and crunched it up. Cold mice were not as good as warm ones, he decided, licking his whiskers clean. 

Then he picked out the biggest one, and holding it in his mouth tightly, he trotted back to the nest. He could sense when the weasel looked up from licking his leg and blinked at him inquiringly. Draco put the mouse down in front of him and backed up. The weasel paused, snatched up the mouse, and swallowed it whole. Draco was reminded again that he was sharing a narrow, confined space with a predator twice his size.

The weasel yawned, showing his sharp teeth even though they could not be seen, and twisted to give one last lick to his tail. Then he reached out, knocked the young stoat down, pulled him close and curved his body around him. Draco was forced to curl tightly around until he rested, tail over nose, with the bigger animal in the same position surrounding him. It was warm and Draco was exhausted. He took the hint, closed his eyes and fell asleep almost instantly. 

It was a long nap, for a stoat. He woke up hungry again. It seemed that stoats were almost always hungry. Waking up also woke up the weasel, who allowed him to climb over his body and then followed him up the burrow and out. Each of them sniffed the air. Lovely scents. Things to eat in almost all directions. They parted without any goodbye, the stoat following the alluring scent of mouse. 

It was good hunting. Mouse! Another mouse! Hot and delicious! In his hunt, he found himself back at the battle site, and he stopped to look it over. The back part of the spider was gone, something had come by and eaten it. Birds, by the tracks in the dirt. The front part of the spider was still there, on it's back, legs drawn up. It looked smaller this way. Smelled bad. He thought about the poison in the fangs, wondering if Professor Snape would want any of the spider for parts. Pacing around the dead body several times, he decided he wasn't about to try to collect dangerous ingredients in this form, and he went to look for more mice.

He came across the weasel, head down in the throat of a rabbit. The slim head came up to look at him, and then he seemed to shrug and go back to his dinner, which he accomplished with enthusiasm. He ate more than half the rabbit before he sat back to groom the blood off his paws and snout. 

There was all that rabbit going to waste. Slowly Draco crept up. The weasel let him. So he took a quick bite of the exposed haunch. He'd never had rabbit before, the prey was usually too large for a stoat, but it tasted fine. He munched away, both eyes open and directed at the weasel. The weasel had a rounded belly and no interest in fighting for his own leftovers, and soon the stoat had a similarly stuffed profile. They sat around for a bit, grooming, a few feet apart. Then the weasel went and marked a few rocks, defecated on a low, flat rock, gave a few kicks with his back legs and went on his way again.

Draco took another mouthful of rabbit, went and pooped so that his own twisty feces covered that of the weasel, and wandered off himself. 

He explored the world, amazed at how different it was at this level. How many small holes and hidden places there were, how many more insects than he had thought lived on, and in, every square foot. He crunched up a few beetles but found they weren't that good. Not compared to small mammals. He came across a dead bird, but didn't sample it. No one else had, either, and he wondered if something were wrong with it. What killed it? You never knew, this close to the forest. It could be poisoned.

The shadows were changing. He needed to get back. He made his way to a big tree, and reversed the spell while standing on the far side, well out of sight of Hogwarts, the lake or Hagrid's hut. He straightened his robes, checked his wand, and then set out. He'd not gone far before he came across the carcass of the spider. 

Draco stood looking down on it. Hideous thing, but so different from this angle. Less terrifying. Just as ugly. About the size of a quaffle, now, with the legs all drawn up that way. He pursed his lips, and then took out his handkerchief, enlarged in, placed it on the ground and with his toe, nudged the spider body onto it. He magically tied the ends and used his wand to lift the bundle up. He had no desire to touch it. He'd take it to Snape. It would give him an excuse to be out here, and maybe the potions teacher would give him points. Slytherins were down, at the moment, thanks to bloody Harry Potter offing the dark lord. 

Well, nobody actually put it that way. Giving points for murder was not on. But for bravery and for protecting the castle? For that the wonder boy got points. Three hundred and fifty points. He who must not be named, even if he was dead, would have been livid to know his total worth could be counted in house points. Draco scowled. He wouldn't think about Slytherin being three hundred points down, or losing his father in the Great Azkaban Escape, or about the trashed out heap which was Malfoy Manor. 

The manor hadn't fallen all at once. Lord Voldemort had become enraged as his plans failed one by one, and taken it out on the stone walls and the people unlucky enough to be near them, over the course of a very long week. The unlucky eventually numbered among them Draco's mother, his aunt and his uncle. None of his close relatives had survived the war. 

He himself had barely gotten through it alive and sane. He was grateful he was of age and at school, and not locked up somewhere. 

Although he was confined to Hogwarts, at least for the next three months. To claim a school boy's innocence, he had to be a school boy. It chaffed. He felt too old for it. A bell sounded across the meadow, and he lengthened his stride. When he reached the path he mingled with the students coming back from Hogsmeade. Harry Potter was laughing with Neville Longbottom, jumping about like a loon as he acted out a Quidditch move. Draco sneered at them out of habit, but there was not real feeling in it. He turned his back, smirking to himself. He was an animagus now. Potter couldn't say that, could he?

He'd never let the Boy Who Lived know about it, of course. A stoat was just too close to a ferret, and the idiot would tease, or his friends would. It was annoying not to have a form which was more dramatic, more impressive. A tiger, perhaps. Or a hawk. But there were advantages to his form. He could get into small places, and out of them, and quietly, too. Could be quite useful. Too bad there was nothing he wanted to spy on at the moment. 

As he went up to the great hall, he thought again about registering his form, but knew he didn't want to do it quite yet. First he wanted to get good at changing. If he registered, it should be after he got out of school. Just to keep the Gryffindors at bay, and to have an ace if they got nasty. That lot never knew when to leave off. 

Once in the castle, he went to the dungeons and knocked on the door to Snape's lab. The man opened the door promptly. "Good afternoon, Professor. Would you like half a spider? Killed this morning," he said. He was gestured in. 

His teacher unwrapped the parcel, poked the spider with his wand and said, "There's almost no venom in here," he growled, disappointed.

"Used it up in a fight, I think. Looks like he was torn right in half," Draco said.

"Where did you find this? You didn't go into the forest?" Snape growled.

"No, it was at the edge."

"Was the body inside the wards or out?" Snape prodded the spider again.

"Just inside." Probably. He didn't even remember, for sure. It was all a bit of a blur now. "This side of the trees," he added, sure about that.

"Disturbing. They should not be able to step outside the bounds of the forest. Are you sure?" The fierce black eyes looked down at him intently.

"Not totally, no. I confess I didn‘t note the position precisely," Draco said, lazily. His tone said he never bothered with such minutia.

"Next time, do." Snape went over and opened the door for him, adding, "My thanks for the spider. A very young acromantula, I believe. If there has been a hatching, there may be more. This one does not count for the assignment you will have tomorrow about gathering fresh ingredients." He implied that a second one would be acceptable. 

"I understand, sir." The reward he had been given in return for the spider was the information about an upcoming assignment. He would tell the other Slytherins. With advance information they could read up and get some work done before the class started. This meant that they could answer the questions in class, gain points and make the Gryffindors look bad. All worthy goals. This time it wasn't as useful as it could be, but he would pass it on to his housemates anyway, just to confirm to them that he still pulled his weight, that Snape still confided in him. Draco had lost status in the last year, with the death of his father and of Voldemort. He had to work to maintain his spot as highest ranking Slytherin now. While not showing a hint of the effort involved.

He took his leave of the Potions Master and made his way to the Slytherin headquarters. The password was Boa. Insipid, but at least it was easy to remember. He passed swiftly through the common room and up to his own room. The seventh year Slytherins did not sleep in an open dormitory, but had cells. Three full walls, and a partial wall with an arched doorway open to a study room. One was not allowed an actual door to the cell, but each student could rely on his or her own magic to make the place secure. So a curtain of light hid his room from the common view, and wards and spells kept it all safe. 

Once inside, Draco spelled away the dust of the day, changed to a fresh light weight robe and gathered up his book-bag. He went to the library, where he diligently looked up information on gathering fresh ingredients, and what type was available in the Hogwarts vicinity. Then he summoned a book pixie and said, "Find me information on stoats and weasels. Two or three general texts and then some newer information, newer meaning the last twenty years." 

The pixie flitted away. They were poxy things, and it was best to remember that you were relying on their personal interpretation of the words you used. Classic, old, new, few, many, significant texts, important -- each pixie would have their own meanings assigned, and sometimes their interpretations were unusual. It could be a nightmare. But when a student just wanted to do general research, or merely look at a sample what was available, and did not greatly care what would be brought, they were quite useful. 

Soon he was surrounded by books and periodicals, nose deep in the biggest of the lot. He now knew what potions required stoat blood, or weasel blood. He had read some legends and tales about stoats, most of which seemed quite unlikely. Especially the dancing part. He had been confused with the publications which were not British, and it had taken several more trips by the pixie before he'd read enough to sort most of it out.

Mustelidae was quite the family. He still hadn't quite worked out all the differences between a polecat and a ferret, or sorted out the how domestic ferrets, which one source said was bred from polecats, and wild ferrets, were related. Although apparently all of them could produce an amazing stench when harassed into it, and were to a certain extent fertile with each other.

And then there were all the geographical and cultural differences in the names. In England, a stoat was smaller than a ferret, but larger than a weasel, which was also known as the European common weasel, or a least weasel. In Ireland, where there were no least weasels, the stoat was called a weasel. In other parts of the world, where there was no least weasel, the stoat was smaller, and called a short-tailed weasel, and there was a larger long-tailed weasel, usually just referred to in North America as a weasel. Added to that was the fact that the females of all these were often as much as half the size of the males, so that the large male weasel would be eating an entirely different prey than the female, who would be eating the same fare as a male stoat, while the female stoat would be eating the same as a least weasel male. Confusing. 

Then, of course, there was the part where the stoat turned color in the winter and became an ermine. Although there were apparently some places where they didn't change, and some places where some did, and some did not, all in the same population, and other places where a stoat might only turn partially white. Yes, confusing.

He found that all the weasels were, for the most part, solitary animals, but they liked to play, and they had the most appalling, if practical, mating habits. They were known for cleverness and guile.

Well, how very Slytherin!

The gong for dinner disrupted his studies, and he sent the pixie to work putting the books back. He'd only just left his books laying out the once. Madam Pince always made sure that no one ever forgot a second time. On the stairs he came upon Crabbe and Goyle, who automatically fell in behind him, and then pulled away to walk together on one side. He could have had them back at his beck and call again if he had wanted them. After all, he knew their secrets and he had always made sure they owed him favors. But the children of Death Eaters did not gravitate to Draco Malfoy anymore, nor trust him. There was some talk that Malfoy had been playing both sides, that he had something to do with Voldemort's death. In a small way, it was true. Not that he would tell anyone. He had enough problems.

Draco Malfoy didn't exactly appreciate being handed his inheritance at the age of 18. He'd planned on a decade or two, at least, of the life of a dilettante playboy before bestirring himself to learn the family business. After all, Lucius had been barely fifty when he died, with another hundred years or more left in his life span. He would not have been in a hurry to have his son supplant him, and Draco hadn't intended to. 

Too bad his father had picked the wrong side. For Draco as well as Lucius. Now Draco was going to have to learn how to manage his money and run an estate. If he wanted to rebuild the manor -- and he wasn't so sure he wanted that -- he was going to have to learn about that as well. 

Better to just live in the London flat or the house in France. If live was the word. Hide out was probably more accurate. He was already getting several owls a day inquiring as to the status of his search for a wife, most of them diffidently suggesting that they had a daughter he ought to consider. Because of course it was now his duty to marry and produce his own heir. 

Right. Not that he was inclined to do it. He had no interest at all in being married. In fact, he was inclined towards wizards at the moment. He'd looked forward to years and years of dissipated experimentation and everything that went with it. He felt robbed. His own father had his decade to sow wild oats. Draco was owed at least the same, wasn't he?

He sat down in his usual spot at the Slytherin table, checked out the teacher's table to see if there were guests, and then turned his attention to the rather nice soup which had appeared before him. The other courses were also good that evening. He was hungry and ate more than usual. He wondered if the cause was the metabolic effort to turn into the stoat and then back, or if he had acquired somehow the appetite or metabolism of the stoat, which often ate 40 percent of its own weight daily. 

He was one of the last to leave the table, and found himself a dozen feet behind the Boy Who Lived and his two shadows. Granger and Weasley were walking on either side of Potter again, instead of walking with the mudblood in the middle, as they had for the last year or so. Trouble in paradise? Had Miss Granger realized that Potter made a better catch than Weasley? Weasley was pureblood, which normally would have made him a better choice than a half-blood like Potter, but then, Weasley was both poor and without prospects. Potter at least had a little money and some fame. Huh. Okay. A lot of fame.

Of course, if she were looking for a handsome face, she was out of luck on both counts. Neither one could be called handsome, although they also avoided being actually ugly. Potter was runty and had that impossible hair. Weasley was a fair size, but there was no refinement in his face, and he had no grace at all. 

Damn, and it looked like they were heading for the library, as was he. He slowed down so it would not look as if he were following them. Inside the library, he chose a table on the far side of the room from them. Rather to his surprise, they were quiet and began to study at once. Granger was trotting to and fro, fetching books for them all and returning them when finished. Why didn't she use a book pixie? Or was she opposed to their work as she was to house elves? 

Draco forced himself to spend more time investigating potions ingredients indigenous to Scotland, and then re-reading the chapter in his book. Then he diligently finished his essay for transfiguration and the last of his arithmancy. Finally signed out two books from the librarian and returned to the Slytherin dormitory. He stopped in the common room to chat briefly with Daphne, just to show that he could stay if he wanted to, and then went directly to his own cell. It was a relief to feel the protective wards tighten behind him. It took work to look that casual, and he was tired enough to entertain the idea of going to bed early.

He was in bed by ten. Disgracefully early. Strangely, he was not even in the mood for self-ease. He only wanted to sleep. So, of course, he lay there staring up into the dim shadows of his curtained bed while sleep eluded him. The details of the day crowded his brain, and the memories almost hurt. Stoats didn't think the same way as people, and trying to remember stoat memories with his human brain made it ache. 

His mind finally drifted to memories of his new friend. The weasel. He'd always felt scorn for weasels, probably because of the Weasley name and connection. Weasley meant weasel, if he remembered correctly. Now that he knew that the weasel, the least weasel, was the smallest carnivore on the island, it somehow fit the Weasleys, who were the least of the pureblood wizards, according to his father. 

Possibly his negative feelings about weasels had also developed from childhood. He knew that the gamekeeper at home had spent a certain part of his efforts making sure that the weasel population in the area was maintained at a rather low level. The man considered them vermin. Useful vermin, of course, you didn't want to eliminate them completely, as they kept the mouse and vole population in check. Come to think of it, the man considered stoats and ferrets in the same light.

Which reminded him that perhaps he should be wary of transforming at home. There might be traps or unknown dangers on the grounds. He wondered then if the gamekeeper and the grounds crew had stayed on the job with the death of his father. Were they being paid, or just living on the estate off the crops and the exotic game his father had imported, waiting for the new master's orders?

Which reminded him of the roasted peacock his mother served at his last birthday dinner. His mouth watered, but what was eerie was that now he could imagine leaping up, catching the bird by the neck, breaking that neck by landing at just the right angle as he hit the ground, and feasting on raw flesh. He wondered what raw bird would taste like to his human mouth.

Which reminded him of how his father had liked his beef, so rare that it was barely warmed in the middle. He wondered what his father's animagus form would have been. He knew that if his father had been an animagus, he hadn't registered. He felt both pride that he had achieved something his father had not, and doubt, because his father might have had the ability and not trusted him enough to share such information. 

Restlessly, he turned over, pulling his thoughts from his dead father by force of will. It hardly mattered now, did it. The man was dead, and mother, too. Dead in more than one way, because Draco was not going to carry on his parent's values. Their house was tumbled. He wasn't going to try to raise Voldemort or become the next dark lord. Wasn't going to join the Death Eaters and waste his life thundering about seeking trouble in that ham-handed way.

Although he wasn't sure what he was going to do when he left school. Perhaps the goblins at Gringotts would direct him towards a tutor who would fill in the gaps in his financial education. Help him find what funds his father and mother had hidden from each other, for example. 

He mentally hauled his thoughts away from them again. He forced himself to think about something much better. Think about today, he said to himself. His wonderful discovery of his animagus form. He'd been working on the components for weeks, practicing whenever he could, reading all that he could find. Stealing that book from Zabini for a day and then putting it back exactly where it had been, and the other boy none the wiser, had been most helpful. Then, this morning, he had found a quiet place to put it all together, and to his pleased amazement, he had done it on the second try. 

He'd spent a full five minutes frozen in place, trying to adjust, trying to see out of new eyes, and sort out the insane flood of smells and their meanings that were slamming into his brain. He had looked himself over, front legs, hind legs, wonderful tail with the black tip. Then he had turned back to a person, used his wand to cast a reflecting charm, and switched once again in order to view his new form. He had looked at himself from all angles, admiring himself, smoothing his fur, making little stoat-ish sounds. 

Then, finally, he had started to move, sniffing here and there, marking the territory, poking his nose into holes and climbing over logs and stones. There was a joy in moving on four paws, a feeling of rightness which made his feet seem light, and made him want to run. So he did. Ran, leaped, twisted into shapes impossible for human bodies, again and again. He could sense his blood, smell the universe, and he was insanely happy. 

Then he had met the big weasel, and the spider, he'd fought, and he'd been half drowned, and then there had been the burrow and the pile of lovely mice. He thought happily about mice. Little perfect packets of food, with crunchy bits and….

He lay there, smiling up at the brocade which arched over his bed, and as he was remembering it all a second time, a little niggling thought finally escaped to bring itself to his notice.

Weasel. Big weasel. Bigger than him. 

The really big weasels came from a different continent, according to his research. There was no reason for a giant weasel to be cavorting on the grounds of Hogwarts. If it had been outside the boundary, inside the Forbidden Forest, then it could have been an illusion or a transfiguration, or a dark creature, or even just somebody's lost pet which had got into a patch of magic and increased in size. The forest was known for its oversized denizens. But it had been on the grounds of Hogwarts. Inside the wards. 

So what was it? One of Hagrid's beasties? Some sort of guardian? Had it been looking for a rogue spider which had somehow escaped the forest?

Or was it an animagus? That was the most likely explanation. 

Who was it? A teacher? An intruder? Someone who should not have been inside the wards? No, it had attacked the spider, it had a protective nature. It had thrown him into the water to wash the spider venom off. Yes, perhaps it was a teacher. 

Or a student, practicing, as he himself had been, out of sight of the castle. 

There was a spell which would make an animagus reveal their true form. There was a potion for that, too. Draco sighed, because it meant a trip back to the library tomorrow to copy them down so he could learn them. Still, he had the time, he was caught up on his assignments. He wasn't a prefect this year. So why not?

Eventually he fell asleep. He woke up in the night, wondering if it had all been a dream. He talked himself out of transforming just to show himself that he could. He was too tired for that. He curled up and drifted off to sleep again.


	2. Chapter 2

He woke up early, ravenous. He bathed and dressed quickly, and was the first to sit down to breakfast. The food was steaming hot and smelled so good that he was swallowing saliva before he took his first bite. In ones and twos, the students began to straggle in, including, he as displeased to note, Hermione Granger, without her usual escorts. She read a book the entire time she ate. How rude. He would have attributed it to her Muggle lack of up-bringing if three wizard-born Ravenclaws weren't doing the same thing. 

He had time to go to the library before class, and headed there, his stride swift. The library was surprisingly busy for this hour of morning. Even Ron Weasley was paging through a book. Without the Mudblood? He was probably up to something, because although Draco did not actually know Ron, even Slytherins knew that he had a healthy appreciation for his food. He ought to be still at breakfast. Oh, here came Harry Potter from the stacks, a dozen books piled in his arms. 

Draco didn't mean to, but as he passed by the table, his glance fell onto the open book in front of Weasley. It was open to a picture of a spider. 

A frisson of shock settled in his spine. A spider. Coincidence? He frowned as he went to potion's section. He took the long way back, by way of the stacks that were one over from the table the trio were hunched over; he paused and breathed lightly, trying to hear what they were saying.

"…that’s seven in three days…bigger…not expect…." that was Granger. She must have come in behind him. Potter wasn't saying anything, apparently, and all Weasley was doing was making sounds when she paused. Encouraging short sounds, then neutral, then questioning. "Got to get to class. We'll meet back here after our last class of the day." Granger was speaking more loudly as she stood up and packed her bag. 

Draco eased his way back and turned to make his way to the desk to sign out his book. He ended up in line behind Weasley, but they both carefully ignored each other. He was taking out books for Granger, as per usual. When there was a limit on books, Granger always had all she wanted, because she shamelessly exploited her two friends. Of course, Draco had always done the same with Crabbe and Goyle. Much harder this year, without it, but he had his own personal library still. His mother had always bought him ten new volumes at the start of the school year, and another ten or twelve at Christmas. His father's contributions had been fewer, but expensive. In plain covers, spelled to look like innocuous volumes, they had always been…very useful. Just not for assignments.

Deliberately waiting until Weasley friends had left was a mistake. He got caught on the moving staircases and barely made it to class on time. After, it seemed like he was trying to catch up all day. He'd eaten lunch quickly and then spent twenty minutes explaining some hex theory to third years. It wasn't that he had any interest in the young ones themselves, but it was important for Slytherins to look good in class. Also, he was working on the theory that he could maintain his status by putting the younger students in his debt. It was a shaky strategy if the upper years ever actually turned on him, but it worked well enough with their current policy of just ignoring him. 

After his last class, he practically ran to the library to get there before Potter and his friends. He put his books on a table which was tucked away in a corner, and after looking both ways to make sure he was alone, he closed his eyes and began to whisper the incantation. In a moment he felt the tug on all his muscles and felt himself begin to change, to fold inward onto himself. As soon as he was changed completely he took a moment to catch his breath and then very quietly began to climb up the shelves. Some shelves in the library were the old-fashioned kind with backs, but most of those were in the restricted section. That type of shelf served to prevent dangerous books from touching each other accidentally. The shelves in the student section were the newer sort which were open in the back, so that one could peer through to the next aisle, if one were so inclined. He found it was easy to climb up and not be seen. He was glad his coat was changing to summer brown, it would have been harder to hide if he was all white.

What he didn't like was having to fight back the sneezes. Although it may not look like it from the front, there was actually a bit of dust back behind the books, and even, occasionally, a bit of cobweb or a sign of a mouse. Surely Madam Pince knew a cleaning charm or two? He realized that the books were spelled to be protected against vermin, he could barely touch them himself in this form, but that obviously didn't prevent a hopeful bug or rodent from occasionally venturing into the library. Possibly the student's cats came and did a bit of hunting from time to time, because he didn't find any mice. Too bad. He really could use a mouse about now. It was almost supper time.

He found a great place to eavesdrop on the Gryffindors. He could even peer out and see the illustrations in the volumes that were open on the table. The two male Gryffindors were leaning on the table, and Granger was sitting in front of a pile of books, pen in hand.

"Well, I've got a list of the substances that drive away spiders," she said, "and I've copied down some household potions which are supposed to discourage them or kill them. Harry, you were right about the hedge apples. That was just Muggle legend, and it doesn't work at all." The Muggle-born was almost lecturing in her tone. Malfoy's nose twitched. How did they stand it? But the two boys didn't seem to mind at all when she said, "Harry, would you go back and get that volume by Answiggle we had yesterday? And Ron, we'll need to start the next section." They trotted off to do her bidding. Apparently, her job was to scan the volumes and sort them into two piles. 

When Harry came back, she thanked him absently and then said, "Harry, I hate to mention this, but this is the third source that says that Basilisk powder is the best substance for spider bane potions. I also have one source that suggests that a shed Basilisk skin is the best source."

"You want me to go see if there's anything…there?" Potter did not look happy.

"It might come to that. I'm just mentioning it now, in case. Here, why don't you read chapter three in Burbury." She thrust a book at him. He opened it obediently and began to read. Weasley returned with another stack of books and she reached for one before he even had the stack settled onto the table. 

Weasley was frowning down at the book now on the top of the stack. The cover was embossed leather, and the spider carved there was rather realistic as it crawled across from one corner to another. "Even when they're not real, they give me the creeps," Weasley said, as he sat down. "What am I looking for?" he added, with resignation in his tone. 

"Arachni-tongue references. People able to speak to spiders using potions, spells. We may need to communicate at some point. Right now, I think we are dealing with Aragog's kin, and they can speak, although I do wonder exactly how they came to do so. I know the original spiders were the result of experimental breeding, but the capability of speech should indicate higher brain function, and….well, what I wonder is if these spiders we are dealing with are just spiders basically, with minor adaptations, or something more than spiders. Are the ones crossing the wards under Imperius or compulsion, or have they made a decision and are working on a plan of their own? Why now, what has impelled them to push the boundaries? If it is not Hagrid's spiders, which can talk, can we speak to them through potions or spells? My readings say that anything lower on the evolutionary scale than reptiles make unlikely conversationalists. But the spiders you met in second year talked, right?"

Ron said, "Yeah, but except for Aragog, the acromantulas we heard pretty much stuck to one word or two words at a time. Harry and I were talking about it, and we think Aragog got exposed young, with Hagrid talking to it and all, but the babies afterward didn't. Spiders probably don't sit around chatting in the man language. Why should they? But I don't know. Maybe they communicate with those clacks they were all making."

"Ron, that's brilliant! A non-verbal language would be very logical! We'll have to look that up, too." 

Ron groaned at the thought of more work, even as he opened a book. They read quietly for a few minutes and then Hermione spoke again. "Ron, tell me again what happened when you spoke to Dumbledore."

"Well, he invited me to sit down. He was going on about this being our seventh year and what the future holds. He was more scattered than usual and it was hard to get him to focus on me. I had to interrupt him to get him to stop rambling. Then I explained to him how the forest was getting closer, that I'd actually measured it and it was coming closer at about an inch a week. He said thank you for telling me and would I like to try the new lemon candy he had found. I said no, he ushered me out. In and out in about seven minutes, actually."

"You'd think he'd be more concerned," she said, stopping completely to consider it.

"Keeping it quiet so as not to alarm the students. Playing a deep game. Again," Ron suggested. But he frowned, too. "Do you suppose there's a…problem?"

"With Dumbledore? That's what I was wondering. He's not showing up for meals very often. I wonder what they're hiding from us now," she said with a sigh. Then she said, "Check your measurements again this evening and then…there's no hope for it. We'll have to talk to Professor McGonnagal." The thought did not seem to give her pleasure. "Oh, and Professor Snape has given us an ingredients assignment. If you see any likely plants while you're out there, mark them for me, will you? I'll need twenty different ones, and there's extra points for the rare ones."

"You think I know a potions ingredient from a clump of grass?" Weasley asked with a snort. "Although if the spiders are getting through the wards, then maybe I can bring you one of those." He was being sarcastic. She ignored that and replied as if his offer had been genuine.

"That would be splendid. If it's small." She nodded her thanks. 

He rolled his eyes. "Right, Hermione. Small."

"If a large one has gotten through, try one of the spells we learned last night. I know they worked well on the spider we got from the closet, but I want to know how they work on the large, magical spiders. Also, if they don't work, remember the leg-breaking hex and how to do it with the multiple of 8." 

"Right." The one word held a bit of resentment in it.

"Is it this, or are you angry at me, still, about… You're still upset about the charm?"

"I'll always be upset about the charm. I never thought you'd use one of those. Or believe it. And drop me because of it." There was more resentment now. Draco suppressed a chitter of delight at hearing this bit of gossip. So Weasley and the Mudblood had split up? He eased down one shelf, until he was almost parallel to their heads, and eased aside a book until he could hear better.

"I didn't drop you. You know we mutually agreed." 

"Yeah."

"I didn't go out and do it on purpose, did I?" Granger was leaning forward and speaking intently. "I was only being sociable when I joined the girls, but then I was so shocked when the results of all three of the charms were so…clear. The "initial" charm with the apple peel was plainly not an R or a W. I don't know what it was. Perhaps I'm destined to remain unwed. Did you know Muggles historically had a similar game? I wonder if anyone still plays them at Christmas time? Only without the charm, so the Muggle game is always up to chance." 

"Hermione," Weasley began, but she talked over him.

"And the Compatico. That was most startling. I didn't realize there were charms designed just to see how biologically compatible a Muggleborn might be with a particular wizard. It said our children would probably be squibs, Ron!"

"Like that'd really bother you. You'd just raise them Muggle. I think you had doubts even before that." Ron gave a sniff, and then a quick rub of his nose. 

"All I said was that I wanted to complete my Muggle and Magical education before I got married, and…."

"And that would take most of ten years and you wanted us to date others in the meantime."

"That only makes sense. I know you've dated quite a few girls, before me. You do it every time we've broken up, too. I think you crave variety at this point in your life. Or maybe you just haven't found the right person, but you're young, it's natural. You love me dearly and I love you. I think we always will. We'll be special to each other, because we were each other's first. But I want you to be happy, Ron."

Weasley gave a sigh. "Yeah. I know." He buried his nose in a book. 

Behind the books, Malfoy was trying to stay very still, but was swaying back and forth, his little paws flexing. He had some gossip to trade with Daphne, now. He'd missed out on so much of the rumors and the conniving, since he had lost his status as head of Slytherin. No one was talking to him partly because he had nothing to trade. He hadn't considered it before, but now that he thought of it, with his animagus form there were dozens of opportunities to spy on his fellow students, to pick up some juicy tidbits to pass on. He gave a happy little flick of his tail, and then hastily pulled it back up against his feet.

Potter came back. Granger told him about the plan to talk to McGonnagal. Potter made a face, too. It seemed like taking problems to the head of Gryffindor house wasn't always an effective way to handle them. Perhaps she'd dealt with so much Gryffindor trivia that she hardly listened to them at all. Couldn't blame her for that.

The old cat should be listening, though, if it was true. Was the forest really changing the boundary? Creeping towards the castle? He'd better check it out for himself. And then go see Snape about it. The Gryffindor head of house might be a total idiot, but his wasn't. 

Unfortunately for him, the Gryffindors all sat down and got busy with their research, and it became incredibly boring. Also, Draco's stomach was complaining that it had no food. After fifteen minutes of watching the pages turn, he gave it up and crept back to the corner, where he transformed back into himself and then gathered up his own books. A quick stop to drop off his things and he was first at the door to the great hall when it opened. How annoying that the food would not arrive until the majority of students had taken their places. When the food came, he ate impatiently and then hurried outside to find a quiet place to change.

Then he discovered that he couldn't transform just after eating. Or, at least, that he didn't yet know how to do it. One was forced to wait, apparently, until digestion was well started. When he transformed, he felt sluggish. But he'd eaten before he changed last time. Perhaps it was the amount. He had considerably more than a mouse at supper. In fact, he'd stuffed himself, mostly on meats. 

So he wandered about a bit in human form, checking on distances, trying to remember exactly where the forest had always been. He just couldn't tell, until he came to the place where he had once met his father so that the older Malfoy could pass him a book. He distinctly remembered sitting on a certain rock as he waited. His father had been an hour late and Draco had plenty of time to memorize the surroundings. He'd sat on that very rock, wrapped in his best see-me-not charm.

The rock that was now perhaps a dozen feet on the other side of the misty line that defined the border of what was Hogwarts grounds and what was not.

Weasley was right. Unless it was an illusion? Draco cast disillusionment spells, and tried a few assorted finite's with no effect, and then closed his eyes and tried some legilimency. Sometimes one could sense if another person was near, even if the mind of the person couldn't actually be read. But no. He was alone. 

He tried again to transform and this time shrank down to stoat-form easily. It felt great and he did a little racing about, although this time he kept an eye out for dangers. When the first rush was out of his system, he went exploring along the boundary. He found a place with little chips of wood stuck into the ground, which must be one of the places Weasley was measuring. The line of the wood bits marched back several yards into the gloom of the forest. If Weasley had used one chip every day, then it looked like he had been measuring for about three weeks. But from the distance between the chips, either he wasn't getting out here every day, or the forest was advancing at different rates. 

Draco had climbed a tree to look at it from a new angle, and the only thing he'd learned was that his stoat eyes didn't like bright light. He was coming back down when he heard some twigs cracking. He dropped to the ground and ducked behind a bush, tucking himself into a small shadow, poised to run. He wasn't very surprised when Weasley came blundering along. The Gryffindor squatted down, shoved a bit of stick just on this side of the almost invisible line, and spent a moment just staring at the dirt before he stood up.

People looked odd from this angle. Mostly, the view was of sturdy, well worn shoes with bunchy socks, dark pants and the hems of dusty robes. Huge. Towering. He could even feel the heat of the big body as it passed. And there was a distinctive smell. Not bad, but thickly human, male, with an over-scent of roast-beef and gravy, and a strong odor of magic. Draco sniffed it, unconsciously memorizing it. 

When Weasley left, Malfoy stayed still for awhile, thinking. He was quiet, and small, and so he saw the spiders which scuttled from one shadow to another much deeper inside the forest. One, two, three, and each easily twice the size of the one he had encountered yesterday. The were moving the same direction as Weasley had gone. Were they following him? 

He waited longer, but there was nothing else to see, so eventually he eased out, circled a bit sniffing and exploring, and then reversed his shape to human again. He might as well get a start on Snape's assignment.

When he returned to the castle, he had five herb samples, in containers made of transfigured leaves of the same plants, a little trick to prevent contamination one of the other Slytherins had shown him back in second year. Weasley was ahead of him, holding a branch, too, but in his hand. Draco checked to see if it was something poisonous as he strode past. No such luck. But he found he wasn't really disappointed as jealous. Fawning boxwood? For Granger, no doubt. Where had he found it? Somewhere between the castle and the forest, of course. Too bad it was getting dark and there wasn't any time to go looking for himself. 

He went back to his room to study. It was quiet there. He got quite a lot done before he crawled into bed and blew out the candle. Fortunately it was one of those days when he fell asleep quickly.


	3. A basilisk

The next morning he arrived at the door to Snape's office at seven. He knocked, and was called in. "Another spider, Draco?" Snape asked, looking up from his desk rather hopefully. 

"A matter related." He nodded to show he did not want to talk at the door, and Snape stepped aside to let him in. Draco sat in the chair indicated and said, "I must now confess to you that I have been spying on Gryffindors." That made the edges of Snape's lips turn up. 

"That must be…exciting." The teacher's tone suggested that it was quite the opposite. 

"You have no idea. I suppose you know which Gryffindors usually need spying on?" Snape looked interested. "They seem concerned that they gave critical information to Dumbledore, but nothing was done about it. Since it does seem to be something of importance, I've become curious myself."

"Do go on," Snape murmured. 

"Weasley goes out to the edge of the forest and puts little markers on the boundary. Each day he goes out, it's changed. There's a whole line of the little markers, stretching back to the trees." Snape didn't look any different, but Draco could sense he was focusing all his attention now. "He and the rest of the heroes," he made a face, "think the forest is encroaching onto Hogwarts grounds, and, perhaps at a speed which is increasing. From my own observations yesterday, they are probably right."

"The acromantula," Snape said, making the connection.

"Yes, that's the bit that got me thinking. If it could cross because the boundaries are weakening, then so could other nasty creatures. Even wizards. What's Dumbledore playing at?"

Snape shook his head. "Leave the problem of Dumbledore to me. Where did you say Weasley does his measuring?"

"Where the forest comes closest to the castle. I've only seen one, but I understand he has several places he's measuring."

Snape nodded. "I shall need to check to see if the forest is actually getting bigger, or if it only moving and is also losing territory, perhaps on the opposite side."

Interesting twist. Malfoy nodded and said, "The Muggleborn suggested there might be a need for a spell or potion that would let one talk to spiders. Would you need help brewing one?"

"Abominable things. There is no good spell or charm. Spiders hardly think like humans and don't have proper mouths for speaking. Most translating spells do work with spiders or insects, but usually the results are difficult to understand. Concepts don't match. The potion is hardly a better proposition. Most of them need parts of the type of animal one wishes to speak to, but it must be taken from a living animal, or one very recently dead. The one we have will not work, as it is too old. That entire class of potions seem to be affected by random factors." In other words, even made by a master of potions, they often came out wrong. He obviously took it personally. 

"I'll amuse myself spying on Gryffindors a bit more, and tell you if they say anything of interest. At the moment, they seemed enthralled by their own pitiful excuses for a love life."

Snape looked surprised at that. "All three?" he asked after a moment.

"Ah!" Draco laughed. "A threesome? They hardly seem that adventurous. Sorry, I meant, it's Granger and the Weasel who are no longer an item. Potter, if he has a love life, isn't talking about it in public places."

"But, Mr. Malfoy, wouldn't that seem to indicate that Potter was developing self preservation at last? Or even, perhaps, using his brain?" His tone expressed such doubt and his manner was exaggerated; it made Draco laugh again. 

"If," the Malfoy said when his chuckles had stopped, "you want living acromantula parts, the beasts are within sight of the edge of the forest. I saw three, deep in the shadows. Perhaps they are spying on US."

"Perhaps they are. Perhaps that is why the headmaster appears to be doing nothing. Watching the watchers watch us." Snape seemed to almost sigh as he stood to show the interview was over. Draco said the right things and decided to go spy some more. The library was remarkably uninhabited, however, with just a few Ravenclaws huddled around the biggest table. They were hardly worth spying on, although he did it for a few minutes just to prove to himself he could do it with ought even having to change form. 

He decided to go see what books on spiders the Gryffindors had been studying. It occurred to him that if he knew more about spider anatomy and life, the next one to jump on him was going to get a deadly surprise.

He came away, after an hour, with a rather mixed feeling. The best sources had been Muggle, unfortunately. What a wealth of revolting trivia he had accumulated. There must he hundreds of Muggles who spent their entire lives watching spiders, taking notes and writing articles. Disgusting way to make a living. He was also horrified and fascinated by the mating habits of the spiders. Spiders who vaulted into the jaws of females as they mated, so that she was busy munching long enough for the mating to be completed. Male spiders who "got lucky" but died as soon as they were well inserted, so that their dead body was carted about by the female, preventing other males from mating with her. 

The local acromantulas were almost normal by comparison. They didn't have such dramatic cannibalistic mating habits, because if what he had heard was true, the original two who gave birth to all the giant spiders in the forest were still alive and still producing young. So they must not be the type where the female ate the male. 

Did magical spiders follow the natural patterns of their small kin? If so, they would only be reproducing in the summer. Scottish summers, although not as long as some, had long days, which might affect the production of eggs. If he were one of those crazy Muggle spider watchers, it might be an interesting things to study. 

All those spider children and grandchildren, and no proper predators. How many were they, now? Even with one clutch of a hundred eggs a summer, there should be thousands of spiders in the forest who were there from the breeding of the original pair. When did the acromantulas reach breeding age? Perhaps the forest didn't have enough food for maintaining the population and they were looking to expand their territory? 

He decided to look up those hexes for leg-breaking and spider killing to which Granger had referred.

It was late when he went to bed. His dreams were rather dark and involved too many black, hairy crooked legs. But at least this time it wasn't his father, demanding why he wasn't avenging his death. Or his mother, dripping blood across the white marble steps in the entry hall as she came to greet him at the door. 

All day he felt out of sorts. As he went to lunch, he passed the open door of the castle as the Hufflepuffs surged in from herbology, and he decided to skip the meal and go outside instead. He found himself down by the forest, changing into his stoat form.

He felt much better on four paws. He drank some water from the lake, then retreated to the trees. He found and ate a mouse, which was trying to dive down a hole. The hole was just a hole, but after digging around a bit - and digging was quite fun! - he had expanded it into a burrow. Not a fantastic one such as The Big Weasel had, but a nice little burrow just his size, with a chamber to rest in. He rested in it a bit, came out and hunted down another mouse, and then after a good prowl, he changed back and went up to the castle for his next class, feeling much better. 

He ate a great deal of dinner later that evening and went out to collect ingredients for his assignment afterward. Everyone must have had the same idea because there were students everywhere, some with baskets on the arm, some with sacks and boxes. Not, he noted, the Gryffindor trio. 

He managed to collect some insects and some leaves. Nothing at all unusual, to his disappointment. Why had Snape given the assignment to all upper years?

It was a clever way of refilling Snape's stores, Draco realized as he showered the pungent smell of the herbs from his hands and body. Knowing Snape, the man would next give them an assignment using their own gathered ingredients, forcing those who had not collected or stored theirs properly to subsequently deal with their own incompetence.

Draco was still thinking over his own collection and what he needed to still find as he got ready for bed, but once horizontal, the ideas were forcibly ejected from his head by the reminder from his body that he had not had That in several days and That was what it wanted now. Not that he was adverse. He reinforced his silencing spells and reached over to the bedside table for the potion that was tucked into the furthest corner. 

In first year he had wanked to the memory of certain well-rounded and naked ladies that he had found in a slim volume in the library at the manor. In second year he had managed to sneak the book out and take it to school with him. By third year he was bored with it and had found a Muggle magazine. Well, he hadn't found it, he'd taken it away from a Hufflepuff sixth year who had been too embarrassed to go to anyone else for help in getting it back. By fourth year he had found the wizarding equivalent, which, of course, moved. Delightfully. 

Fifth year he had a rather impressive stack, which he traded with some of the others who also had a stock of them. In the process he got a few which he wouldn't have usually picked up. In some of them, pairs of pretty girls and women shared the pages with pairs of attractive boys and men. In some, the girls were absent all together. He found them all equally interesting. And yet somehow, during the sixth year, he realized he had traded away almost all of the ladies and acquired a refined collection of the other kind. 

Which was the extent of his sex life. His father had suggested rather firmly that he keep his amorous adventures while at Hogwarts under strict control. There was time enough for sexual adventure after he left school, the man had explained. There must be no chance of accidental pregnancy, no possibility of an unwanted alliance. 

Some of the children in the school took potions their parents provided, to prevent pregnancy. Draco hadn't been given a potion, he had been told to develop the strength of will to manage his own body and his own destiny. He'd made his own damn potion, but for the most part instead of using it, he used it for trades to other students. As a result he'd had some trysts, and even collected a few blow jobs from willing Hufflepuff boys. But he'd never had a real affair, or even a sexual encounter with anyone, male or female, which involved being horizontal. 

Which meant he took his time alone in his bed seriously. He had a stable of mental "friends" he had created over the years. None of whom showed up today when he poured the potion in his hands and applied the slick smooth stuff up and down his firming penis. He had to force his mind to produce some bare male bodies and had to concentrate on them way too hard. On the whole, it was not satisfying, even though he ended up sticky and spent. Worst of all was the knowledge that he hadn't even come until, for some freak reason, he had remembered the way a weasel's body looked as it fought, sleek and deadly, with flashing teeth. 

He must have fallen asleep, though, without doing a cleaning spell. He woke up uncomfortable and grumpy. At least this morning, as he crouched behind the books in the library in his stoat form, he could spy on the Gryffindors. When he arrived, the three heads were bent over a piece of paper and they were making a list. He only heard scraps of the conversation until the list was finished, and Granger obligingly read it aloud to see if they had missed anything.

"Lights, heavy clothing under the robes, rucksacks, knives, tongs, ropes, saw, pry bar. We know spells for all of these functions, but I don't want to have to make the trip again." She gave a little shudder. 

"I hate to say it, but do you realize that we know all those spells thanks to Snape?" Potter said. Weasley made gagging sounds. 

"I can't believe we have permission to go," Granger went on.

"From Dumbledore himself!" Weasley said happily. 

She said, "Make sure you wear your oldest robes, with warm clothing underneath. Face masks in case there is a stench or bad air. Gloves. Emergency food and water carried by everyone, double rations. The trip should only take a few hours, but one never knows. We'll leave a note saying the exact time we leave and where we are going, with Neville, to open if we don't come back within six hours. When should we go?"

"Saturday, of course, when we don't have classes," Weasley said.

"At eight, shall we say?" she replied, and smiled as he groaned theatrically. He must like to lie in. "Very well, collect your supplies and Harry, don't forget your backup wand in case one of us loses ours. Now, I think we have time to actually study." Her companions complained but got their books out. 

Draco crept back to his corner and transformed, and then went to tattle to his head of house. There was a class, and he had to wait in the corridor until the third years went rushing out. 

"You again, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape asked as Draco strolled in.

"I'm reporting the movements of enemy troops," he replied with a small twist of his lip that was almost a smile, until it settled into a smirk. Snape drew his wand and flicked out a silencing spell. Then Draco said, "I've brought you a guessing game. Where might the dear children be going?" and then he recited, with perfect accuracy, everything from their list of needed supplies. His parents had paid a great deal for memorization charms when he was young. 

Snape was quiet for a moment and then said a bad word. One that Draco had not heard before. He wasn't sure what it meant, but he memorized it, too. "Sir?" he asked diffidently when Snape settled down to scowling, but not talking.

"Gryffindors!"

Well, yes. People often said that word in just that tone of voice. But he didn't dare inquire again so soon, so Draco waited for his teacher to regain his composure. Or should he give him all the bad news at once?

"They said Dumbledore gave them permission."

"Oh, did he." The flat voice was worse than the profanity. "Well, they shall not go on their expedition alone. You and I will be going with them."

"Where exactly does it appear we might be going?" Draco asked.

"Why, beneath the castle. To the Chamber of Secrets. Where a dead Basilisk waits us. After all, it would not be fair to deny another student -- or their professor -- the chance at these rare potion ingredients." Draco noted that greed had crept in alongside the anger on Snape's face.

"Charming," Draco said, while inside his head he was choking on the idea of crawling around in the dirt scooping up bits of decomposing monster. And who knew if there might not be another of its kind down there?

Snape gave him lists and instructions and sent him to collect up more supplies than would be needed for an expedition to deepest Africa. It put Draco seriously behind for the day and it wasn't until after the evening meal that he could go outside. He told himself again he was collecting for his ingredients project, but the truth was he was half wild to be out and running, and he…really wanted a mouse.

The mice were stubbornly remaining out of sight, and therefore out-of-mouth. His ears and nose led him close several times. He was rather sure a real stoat could have caught them, which irritated him. 

He prowled about, poking his nose into anything that looked interesting. In stoat form, that means small holes and crevices, both on the ground and in trees. He found a squirrel, wedged deep in a crack in an old oak, but could not get at it, his little legs not being quite long enough, and had to leave frustrated. He crawled back down the tree, muttering to himself, and then went on the lookout for a mouse again. 

There! A flick of movement under the tree, like a tail rounding a corner. He crept up carefully, collecting himself to leap. He sprang.

"No!" The human voice boomed somewhere high above him, and he found himself frozen in mid flight, his legs splayed out in a most undignified manner. Gravity was still affecting him, and in only seconds he was going to hit the ground, unable to brace himself to counter the impact. It was going to hurt. Then there was a binding charm, at the same instant that a big hand plucked him out of the air.

He tried to bite, of course, but the binding charm was efficient and he was suffering from vertigo as he swung through the air. The man was huge. From this angle, all he could see was a rough robe and…he was being pulled close to the big chest and his nose was pressed into that most horrible of objects--a Gryffindor tie. He struggled, but the hand curled around, supporting and surrounding him. 

Fingers were warm, at least. So was the chest. He could feel the heat flowing into his body through his feet, all four of which were braced against the human body. He took a deep breath, and looked up, but he already knew who had hold of him. Ronald Weasley. 

"Hey, little lad," the deep voice said, pulling him up higher on the chest so that he was just beneath the chin. "You need to learn to watch where you're going."

"Put me down! Let me go!" Draco said. It came out an angry spitting and hissing. 

"You're a feist, aren't you?" Weasley said, with warm amusement. He drew his hand down the length of the stoat body to sooth him. "And beautiful," he murmured, softly. "Calm down, you lovely thing."

Draco froze. Weasley did it again.

Oh, gods, that felt good. He couldn't help pushing back against that lovely warm pressure. The third time it happened, he gave a little wiggle to his rear, because the stoke only reached down to where his back legs started and the rest of him was jealous. Because of the binding, it was only a little twitch of his leg, but the man seemed to understand and the next stroke went clear to the end of his rump and down his tail a bit. Then those large fingers drifted to his chin and his ears, scratching softly.

Mmmmmm. Ah. There. Higher! No, down. The sound coming from him now was almost a purr, a rough rumble. 

"Like that, do you? You're so soft. Incredible fur. I had a pet rat once, but you're so much softer. Not to mention a thousand times prettier. Too bad you'd take my face off if I took off the binding." The hand kept up the lovely attention. 

Might. Might not. Rrrrchrik. 

"Such a little thing. Clever, too, but not careful enough. You can't see down there what we can see up here. Look." Weasley turned the stoat body so that his narrow head was at an angle and he could see.

Eww! 

What he had taken for a mouse was a grey mass of…web? Attached to a string of the stuff, which vanished into the dark of the forest. In the dark, there was a gleam, a line of flashes which might have been eight eyes. 

"It's a trap. You would get caught in the sticky stuff and hauled into the forest like a fish on a line. Do you see it? D'you?" The voice was intent. Draco wondered if a real stoat would have understood. Maybe. The view was clear, and as he watched, the line was cast again. It reached the path, and the bait twitched in a very realistic manner. "Just keep away from the forest, " Weasley was saying, while those fingers were working their magic again. "It's dangerous and you're too pretty to die."

Draco had always thought so. It was nice to hear, though, even from a Weasley.

"I'll put you down near the boat house. There's usually rats…no, you're a bit small for a rat. You could take one, sure, little tough thing like you, but why take a chance on getting scratched or bit? Don't want to bleed on your pretty fur, Sweetheart." One finger stroked down his nose. "By the garden then. You deserve a nice fat mouse, don't you?"

Weasley turned and was walking along the path back towards the castle. "You feel so nice in my hands. Wish I could keep you. Would you like to live with me? I suppose not. Besides, you’re not on the list of approved pets. Not to mention Hermione would take my head off for enslaving a wild creature. She's right. No caging a wild thing like you. All Weasleys know that. How about here? This is close to the pond, in case you need a drink. Not the lake. Be careful there, the giant squid doesn't mind a stoat snack."

He was pressed against the stubbly cheek for a moment, and then the warm hands eased him to the ground and the wave of a wand undid the binding spell. Draco stood there for a moment, looking up at the towering figure. Then he turned and dashed away. 

He never did get his mouse. An unsettled feeling kept him wandering about. He kept remembering what it felt like to have his fur stroked. Nothing he had ever experienced as a human compared. The entire body, humming with the touch, the feel of your fur compressed against your skin, the sweetness of it. And ear scratches! That was like wanking. Felt good to do it yourself, but somehow it was even better if someone else did it for you. 

But…Weasley? It just wasn't right to be writhing in delight under a Weasley hand. Not right at all. Not right that a Weasley had such a delicate touch and managed to get just the right spots, that his hand was just the right size to make sure that every inch of a stoat body gathered its share of delightful pressure. Petting was hypnotic, the hand against the same spot over and over again, like some sort of unending orgasm, although admittedly not that intense. There wasn't the human equivalent unless it was a massage, and it was just unsettling that the experience nearest to it would be sexual. 

How could something be loathed and adored at the same time? Perhaps if someone else petted him he could compare. Of course, to get that, he would probably have to confess his form to someone, and he didn't want to share his secret with anyone yet. There was no one he trusted anymore. 

He decided to return, and switched forms. He was cold, and so he headed for the castle at a brisk walk, appreciating the ability to move on two feet, to see distances, to not have that constant gnaw in his belly. He went to his room, closed himself in and studied, hands over his ears to shut out the world. He went to bed early, burrowing down under his covers because it somehow did not seem safe with his head exposed. At least he slept well.

He was quite annoyed with himself at breakfast. He kept staring over at the Gryffindor table, where Weasley sat, next to Potter and across from Granger. Their heads were together. Anyone could tell they were plotting. Black hair, brown hair, red hair. Quite a bit of red hair.

Weasely had taken to wearing his hair long, but not long enough to tie it back. He was bigger than the other two, so his head rather obscured theirs. Draco had to force himself to took away from Weasley. He didn't want to be caught staring. Everyone would assume he was obsessing about Potter again, as he had in his younger days. Embarrassing to think of, now. He turned his attention to his table, listening to the rise and fall of voices, to the tone, trying to get a feel for their mood. A pair of fifth years were having a lover's tiff at the end of the table. So boring.

The owls came. He opened the newspaper to stare at the headlines, but he had to set it aside because there was also a letter from the bank. He opened it with a casual thumb and read it through. The goblins has sorted out some of the accounts. At least there was money, even if wasn't mounded quite as high as before. There was still so much to do. He'd have to write in return, but didn't have time before class. He tucked the letter away safely and finished his sausage. It was a link sausage just the length of a mouse. He had to force himself to chew, to use his manners, when he wanted to gulp it down whole.

Classes were long, and barely interesting. Except for Transfigurations. The students all knew that if you could get McGonnagal talking about animagus transformations, she could go on for hours--and sometimes forget to assign homework. He listened avidly for once to her dry raspy voice as she spoke of the ways to get stuck in a transfiguration, and how to get out. Draco took copious notes. 

Not that she forgot about the homework this time. Which was too bad, because there was still a lot to be done before he descended into the depths below Hogwarts with Gryffindors. He had spells to learn, references to check, containers to modify. He had to check his closet. What did one wear spelunking? 

Which was how he came to be clad in his oldest robe, a pack on his back and sturdy boots on his feet, in a girls lavatory at eight in the morning. Beside him was his head of house, his scowl deepening as the door squeaked open and the pack of Gryffindors marched in. It was great fun to see the dismay on their features.

"Sir?" Granger asked, puzzled. She looked around as if hoping to find some sort of justification for their presence. 

"Ah. Our leader has arrived." Snape was addressing Potter, who looked even more dismayed. 

"Leader?" Granger asked. She seemed the only one of the Gryffindors capable of speech. Potter looked stunned and Weasley looked nauseated. 

"We have been added to your expedition." Snape stated. The Gryffindors were obviously caught off guard and wanted to ask questions, but did not dare. There was a moment of silence. 

Then Potter sighed and began to speak. "Fine. But I'm the leader. Pay attention to me. I know about some of the hazards down there." He met Snape's stare directly, his glaring.

To Draco's surprise, Snape said, "It's your expedition. I will still be the senior member of this party, and you will explain any instructions which are arbitrary or unusual. You will start now with a recitation of the dangers we will encounter."

Potter blinked and said, "It's dark, there isn't a clear path. There are rock falls. The most recent is probably only partly cleared away. There's a shed Basilisk skin at one point. Further in there's wet patches, slick, hard to walk on. In the chamber itself there's a pool of water. There should be a dead Basilisk. I don't know how the air will be. We brought face masks and we have air spells, and I hope you have something similar. There may be spells waiting. We never explored more than a fraction of it when we were here before. There may be passages or dangers we didn't come across. There might even be another Basilisk."

"I doubt it, but you are right to urge caution," Snape said. 

Snape.

Said Potter was right about something.

Weasley's eyes looked very unattractive bugged out like that. Granger didn't look much better with her mouth open. Even Potter looked rattled. 

"I will expect extraordinary caution out of all of you," Snape went on. "If you die down there, you will undoubtedly become a ghost. And a school legend. But you'll still look like an idiot, and I will still resent packing out your dead body. I, not Potter, will be totally in charge of the ingredient collection and you will obey every directive in reference to that collection to the letter. Is that understood? 

Draco found himself agreeing along with the Gryffindors. 

"Fine. Our brave leader will now go into detail about what we can expect on this little jaunt." Snape gave an elegant half-bow towards Potter.

Potter ignored it and started talking. It sounded just nasty, all of it. Slide down, mud, slime, a long walk, and perhaps crawling. He'd swear that only a Gryffindor would be so stupid as to explore that environment, especially back when it was inhabited by a Basilisk. Except that from what Potter was saying, Tom Riddle had done it as a student, too. Odd to think of the dark lord as just a student named Tom, breaking the rules. 

So at last Potter hissed at the plumbing and the way opened up with a flash of light. There was some weird moaning behind him. Draco looked over his shoulder to see a ghost haunting the corner. It looked like she was crying. What girls had to put up with just to pee. 

Potter went first. He probably thought he was leader and should, and didn't realize the first man in line was a target. Next went Granger, then Weasley, then Snape. Alone in the room -- if you didn't count the wailing ghost -- Draco cautiously eased his feet over the edge of the pipe and peered down. He wondered what would happen if Harry became stuck. Each of them would run up against him, one two three, and they'd be wedged there in a tangled lump and die. Only the thought of what each of them might say to him if he refused to go got him to push off, his wand clutched firmly in his hand.

Nasty pipe. Wider than it looked from the bathroom, but still odoriferous and damp. Smaller pipes intersected the large one here and there. He wondered what they could possibly be for and where they ended up. If they opened up into the kitchens, for example, it might explain how the Basilisk had been fed through the years. Or was it a series of water pipes? All he knew for sure is that the lip of one of them could give you a substantial bruise as you slid by. 

Sliding down without robes or other protection could have been dangerous. As it was, he shot out of the end of the pipe swearing to himself that he would never wear these robes again. He spelled them clean as he stood up, but still felt filthy. 

Granger had a magic lantern hovering in front of them. It gave enough light to show a small tunnel with damp walls. Weasley was sniffing the air. "Bit more pong to it, wouldn't you say?" he suggested to Harry, who had lit his wand with a Lumos. Harry also carried a mirror.

"Yeah. We go this way," the boy hero said, as he started to walk. Stupid, as there was no other path or tunnel to go down. They all trooped after him, Draco bringing up the rear again. He had pulled out his own lantern and inspected the walls as they went by. The stone was definitely worked. It looked like grooves had been incised into the walls to facilitate the water dripping down, and there was a shallow trench along the sides of the path to direct the water and keep it off the center of the corridor where they walked. Not that it was working all that well, there was an occasional low spot with a puddle. He carefully did not step in the water. Who knew what might be in it. The tunnel grew a little wider. They could have walked side by side if they had wanted to, but they stayed in their line. 

Eventually they slowed and then stopped. A cave-in blocked the way, with only a small area in the center cleared away enough to pass through. One would have to crawl. Draco wished he could turn into his stoat form to get through it. He didn't like to crawl and usually avoided it.

"Wow, Ron. I was too upset to notice the last time, but you really did a lot of work clearing this. Some of these stones are huge. How did you do it?" Potter was asking as Hermione held the lantern higher.

Weasley shrugged, and looked embarrassed. "I was angry, that helped. And scared. No wand, trapped with that wan…with Professor Lockhart, who was no help at all. It was just luck that those big stones fell that way and I could clear out between them. Fortunately there was a bit of light left over from the exploded wand or I would have had to do it in the total dark." He gave a bit of shiver at the memory.

Hermione spoke up, saying, "Perhaps the exploding wand activated the residue from the many light spells which must have been used when this place was made." 

"Whatever it was, it kept me from being totally in the dark," Ron said. "Or I couldn't have done it." He was looking at the hole as if measuring it against the width of his shoulders. Draco realized how young he and Potter had been, and how stupid they had actually been to brave this place with a live Basilisk in residence. 

"I doubt it's actually safe," Snape said. "Stay well back." He took a large pouch from within his robes and sprinkled all the rocks liberally with the powder inside. Then he cast a spell.

The rubble began to move. They watched as all the stones rose up in the air, arranged themselves, and slipped back into place. Most of them went to the ceiling, but some formed part of the wall. He then mumbled another spell, which caused them all to fuse together. 

Snape surveyed his work and nodded with satisfaction, then frowned. "I don't know why Dumbledore didn't send construction and architectural experts down here to check the structure at the time. It wasn't safe to leave the foundation of the school vulnerable in any way. We will be attending to any other needed repairs as we go. I expect you to watch carefully and point out any weaknesses or rock falls you see."

"Yes, Professor," they chorused. They moved a few feet along the passage and the line halted again. Draco leaned forward to see beyond the press of bodies in front of him.

"Ah, the shed Basilisk skin!" Snape exclaimed happily. His glee sounded unnatural to their ears and all the students were staring at him with wide eyes. "Fairly well preserved, too. Get out your collecting kits. Spell your hands or put on protective gloves, as even an old snake skin can have sharp scales. Use your potion knives and do NOT use magic to cut. Magic on dried Basilisk skin can sometimes cause combustion. Cut it into strips a hand wide and a foot long. When you have a dozen, wrap them in this," he held up a stack of cloths, "and then tie the bundle using these," he held up a packet of pre-cut twine. "Collect one bundle for your own use and one bundle for Hogwarts. Work smartly, and this should only take half an hour."

Everyone lined up along the skin, took out their potion knives, and began to work. One had to slice along between the edge of one scale and the next, and the skin was like leather. Draco noticed that unlike his instructions to the students, Snape was using magic to slice his. It was a very complex spell. It caused little sparks which sprang out unexpectedly and burned the man's hands, and so Draco did not complain and ask to use the same. He hacked off his sections and tied them up with as much efficiency as he could manage.

The Mudblood and Potter were having as much trouble as he did, he noticed. It was annoying to see that Weasley, with his bigger hands, had an easier time of it. He watched the fingers curl, the thumb latch round and hold, and remembered how those hands felt on his body. Scratching his ear, rubbing along his belly, tickling his chin. Or, at least, he did until he almost cut himself, and forced himself to attend to his own work and not gawk at someone else's. 

Snape began talking as he worked. "The law of salvage states that as the location of this skin has been known and the owner -- which would be Hogwarts -- who has not collected or made use of it within a calendar year, each person is allowed to collect a reasonable amount, which is roughly the amount which can be carried in one's arms before shrinking. The skin and scales have some value in potions and defensive spells. When we leave, you may keep your supply or sell it. I will buy your share at a reasonable price if you wish to sell."

"What's a reasonable price?" Weasley asked, pausing in his work to look up with interest.

"Fifty galleons," Snape said. Weasley whistled and got back to work. When they were done, Snape showed them how to wrap it and pack it safely in their kits. It did no harm to shrink it, he assured them, but not too small, and nothing heavy should sit on it or it might turn to powder. That wasn't a disaster as it would most likely be powdered anyway, but he didn't want to take the chance of any of it leaking out. 

They then hiked on. Twice Snape made them wait while he did some small repair, and a dozen times they waited while he aimed a light at the ceiling to check for cracks. It was cold down here, and Draco pulled his robes around him tightly while he waited. 

The walls got wetter as they went deeper, and the tunnel inclined downwards slightly. They went around one bend, and then another. At last they faced a wall. Two huge entwined serpents were carved into the rock, their eyes were emeralds the size of a man's fist. Prying them out of their settings would be a supremely idiotic thing to do, judging by the way those eyes seemed to actually look out at them. The smell of magic was warm in the air, chasing away the damp.

A shiver of anticipation ran through Draco. Here he was, standing before the Chamber of Secrets. Only Salazar Slytherin, Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter had been here before them, in modern times. Well, and that sister of Weasley, but if rumors were true she spent most of the time unconscious. He shivered, wondering what he would see on the other side of the doors. He was glad that Snape had ordered him along. 

Weasley had been down here before, but hadn't come this far. He was staring at the huge doors with suitable respect and awe in his face. Draco slid his eyes sideways and saw that at least the mudb….Muggleborn was showing proper deference. In fact, she gave a little small bow towards the doors. Draco felt an unaccustomed trickle of respect for her. 

Potter stood in front of the snakes and hissed a command in Parseltongue. The walls slid away. Before them was a long chamber. Huge pillars held up the roof, which was lost in darkness. These pillars were also carved with snakes. The room was lit with eerie green light, and there were shadows everywhere. The snakes on the pillars seemed to move, but Draco was fairly sure that was the effect of the moisture which gathered in the stone coils and slid down towards the floor. 

Or perhaps not. Slowly, the group moved forward, Potter using the mirror to check around pillars. The chamber was quite large, and at the end stood a giant statue of an ugly wizard. 

"Salazar Slytherin," Draco whispered. 

"It seems unlikely," Snape said, in his normal voice, which suddenly seemed quite loud. "And yet it must be…."

"Why do you think it unlikely?" Granger asked.

Surprisingly, Snape bothered to answer her. "It hardly has the look of a statue one would make of oneself, but who else might have made it? If one assumes that this was Salazar's chamber, and knowing that he was secretive, one might assume he did it and that it took some time to carve. If he made it in his own image, it would have been done quite late in life, as this depicts an elderly wizard. Most Slytherins, should they want to preserve their likeness for posterity, choose the image that flatters them best." They all looked at the long beard and the wizened, unattractive face. "He might have been expected to carve a statue of himself at the height of his maturity and looks. He chose to depict himself as he was when he was older. It does seem to be him, there is a resemblance to the paintings we have of him. Also, legend has it that Slytherin quarreled with Gryffindor and left the school, but this was during his prime, or just after. It could be that someone who came after him who was also a Parselmouth, created this image of him, but the records say nothing of such a person."

"Tom said to it, 'Speak to Me, Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four,' in Parseltongue, and the mouth opened, and the Basilisk came out," Harry reported.

"I suppose it is him, then." Snape said it so calmly. "The mouth is closed now." He glanced up. "Let's keep it that way."

"Yes, sir," Harry said. Er…the Basilisk is over there," he pointed. The group moved forward.

Draco stopped, hands on hips. If that wasn't one of the ugliest sights ever seen. Malfoy frowned down at the waist high corpse. The body was magical and had not really decomposed. It seemed mummified, slumped in place, the skin lax but the body fairly firm beneath it. There was the most decomposition in the area of the head, where the eyes had turned to soup and dripped away. It made the face look as if it had huge tear tracks on it. The skull showed through the skin here, white slivers against the darker black and green.

The view did not deter the potions professor, who said, "I will deal with the skull myself. One fang is shattered. Where is the rest of it?" he demanded, as if Potter had somehow hidden it from him or carelessly lost it.

"That was the fang that went through the diary. Not to mention my arm. It should be over there," Potter pointed. Snape made a sound of satisfaction. 

"Good. Now, each of you will take your knives and slice into the body. Don't bother flaying the skin from the flesh, carve chunks out with care until you reach the interior. I will be placing you in exact locations. Weasley, you will be in the area of the heart. Granger, I wish you to deal with the spleen and liver. Locate them, but do not cut into the organs. Then at the end we will investigate the intestine, as I am curious about this beast's diet. Draco, I will show you how to find the testes and reproductive organs. This appears to be a male. Potter, you will assist me at the head." He positioned them each along the length of the body and then said, "Don't just stand there! Wear a mask for protection so that you may breathe easily, and always were your gloves. Get to work!"

Snape. Charming as usual. Draco pulled on his mask and gloves and began to hack his way into the side of the beast. The flesh was rubbery, it sliced in uneven strips. Eventually Draco found the testes and the hemipenes. In the Basilisk this was essentially a two headed penis about three feet long, as big around as his arm. He reported what he found and then packed into a bag the bits of flesh and skin that had mounded up on the floor before him as he sawed them off. 

"Excellent," Snape said over his shoulder, and Draco stepped away as the older man removed the entire reproductive system and packed it away. Snape next moved to where Weasley had exposed the heart, and collected that. Finally he went to where Granger was working. The raised voices drew Malfoy and Weasely over to see what was going on. Snape had harvested the spleen and was working on the liver while arguing with the Muggle-born at the same time. By the time he had finished, they were standing face to face and glaring at each other. 

"What's wrong?" Weasley asked cautiously.

"I asked him for some of the spleen. He doesn't want to share," Granger said succinctly.

"You would have no idea how to use such a rare and delicate ingredient," Snape said with a sneer.

"Rare, valuable and expensive ingredient? And yes, I would. I have a potion recipe for paper preservative I would like to try. A book made with paper soaked in that solution will last for more than a thousand years."

"It is beyond your training and your ability," Snape said unkindly.

"I didn't say I was going to do it right away. It's not like this needs to be fresh," she said. "Nor do I need much. You will have a lot left." 

Draco spoke up diffidently, "Perhaps he would allot us each a little the Basilisk at the end of the day, after we get it safely up to his laboratory. I would like just a little bit of it, too," he explained. 

Snape glared, but snapped, "I'll think about it," and stomped back to the head, where Potter waited, bucket in hand. 

"Well. Thank you," Granger said to him, before kneeling back down. 

Weasley said, "I need to pee. I'll go behind that pillar," he pointed to the one just before the wall about halfway between the entrance and the statue. He walked over and was lost in the shadows. 

"Slytherin must have had some sort of arrangements for that," Granger was saying. "I wonder where it was? Given the times, it was probably just a chamber pot. I wonder what's under the water? I don't think, originally, the lake was as close to the castle as it is now. It wasn't meant to have all this water under it."

"Castle's were often built over a well or spring, so that there would be water in case of siege." Draco disagreed, looking over at the black water. 

Granger looked over at the water, too, and said, "Perhaps you're right. The water doesn't look nice, but it's not all that foul, really. It doesn't smell like sewer, even though it does smell like a pond. That suggests a source of replenishment. But perhaps that is just the water finding a way in from the outside through the rock. But then why isn't the chamber full of water? It must go out, too." Her worked slowed as she talked her way through her thoughts. Then she stopped completely. "There are a lot of mysteries still here. For example, what was the original purpose for Slytherin putting all this work into, well, a cellar? And if the Basilisk came down with him, what did it eat all those years? There are some small animal bones at the base of the pipe we came in on, so perhaps he ate small creatures, but how did they get here? If the little animals lived down here, what did they eat in turn? Oh, and if the Basilisk ate them and kept the population down, why isn't the place over-run with vermin now?"

Draco didn't know what made him say it, but he said, "What about all those small pipes which intersected the large one? What are they for?"

"Oh, yes! Brilliant!" Granger said it as if she were pleased with the observation, and there was also a healthy amount of admiration and respect in her tone. He couldn't help but feel warmth at that. He got the feeling she didn't get much intellectual encouragement from Potter and Weasley.

"More work. Less chatter," Snape ordered, exactly as if they were in class.

Granger made a face and obeyed. Weasley wandered back, did a clensing charm on his hands, pulled on his gloves, did another clensing charm and also got back to work. After awhile, Draco felt the pressure of his own bladder, and went to take care it. He found the place which Weasley had used, and peed at the same spot. Then, he took a few steps away, and transformed into his stoat form.

Gag! If he had thought the place reeked to his human nose, it was a thousand times worse for his small snout. It smelled of snake. Bad snake. Dead snake. But no live-snake smell. That was comforting. He went scouting along the edge, sniffing, looking. His eyes were better in the gloom than human eyes. He didn't much like the damp on his paws, but shook them a little and continued to follow the wall, making sure the shadows hid him well. Down here, one could see flecks and bits of snake skin on the floor, and behind one pillar he found several oval, flattened shapes the size of a quaffle, which he rather suspected were ancient Basilisk feces. He didn't explore nearly as much as he wanted to in the several minutes he allotted to the adventure, and reluctantly turned back into his wizard form. 

No one made any comment when he returned. After an hour of steady work Snape rather reluctantly told them to finish up. Everyone gathered around while he opened up six feet of the stomach, and another six foot section of the intestines. Rather to Draco's relief, the contents suggested mostly small prey such as rats. Dozens of rats. 

"But at least there wasn't anything horrible, like house elves," Granger was saying to Harry as they finished stowing their bundles. Snape was wrapping up the largest of the packets, a set of six ribs, which he shrank to half their size before he became irritated when they refused to go smaller. Then, when they were all ready to go, Weasley turned out to be missing. Their voices echoes out strangely as they shouted for him.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist. I was just looking around." the red-headed idiot said from an area near the feet of the statue. "I was just thinking," he said, ignoring the derisive snort from the professor, "that Harry should go about, asking things to open, so we can see if there are any hidden chambers."

"Another day," Snape suggested, in that tone which made it an order.

"At least at that place at the feet of the statue?" Weasley pleaded.

"Why? Is there a reason you think it's significant?" Snape asked.

Potter said, "That's where Ginny was. I first saw Riddle right by that pillar," he pointed.

"The air sm…feels different over there," Weasley said. 

"It will only take a minute," Potter said to Snape, and he followed his friend over to that spot, with the rest of them trailing behind. Potter paused, and hissed. The black water roiled, but then was still.

"Do you think something opened under the water?" Granger suggested. At that, Snape lifted his wand and cast a spell that illuminated the water. The pool had six steps down, and then a flat bottom, so it was only about five feet deep. The water cleared enough to at least establish that there were no large unexplained shapes, no bodies, doors or monsters. There was a lot of floating debris.

"Some snakes defecate in water," Granger said helpfully. The information was not universally appreciated. 

Snape rolled his eyes and said, "If you are done playing? Or do you want to spend all day here?" That was the first indication that Snape was in any way uncomfortable with the situation.

Potter quickly took a few more steps away and hissed again. The next time he hissed, he was standing exactly an equal distance between the great stone feet. He jumped when there was a grinding noise, and a section of rock slowly lowered into the floor.

They were looking into a small room. It was shadowed, until a magic torch flickered to life in a sconce on the wall, and the contents of the room could be seen. There was a sort of brazier, a metal bowl with ashes heaped up in the center, in one corner. A tripod on one side held a cauldron hung from the hook. In the other corner, a metal bound chest stood open. Clothing lay hanging over the edges, trailing to the floor. In the center of the room was a bed, so narrow, it was almost more a couch such as the Romans used at banquets. Laid out there was a body, mostly skeleton. It was stretched out naturally, with one arm alongside the torso and one folded over the caved-in chest. The beard was long and thin, some of it coiled under the hand.

Everyone was silent. 

"I think," Granger said at last, "that Salazar Slytherin left Hogwarts, but he came back later in life."

"And lived down here where no one knew," Potter added.

"And listened to what was going on in the school through the pipes," Weasley said. 

"And died here, unattended. The closed room became his tomb." Snape's voice sounded both awed and strained.

"Do you think he left his clothing like that, or did Riddle go through everything, looking for--anything of interest." That was Granger again, peering past the body at the chest in the corner.

"Unless you, too, feel like disturbing the dead, I suggest we don't bother to investigate," Draco said sharply. The whole thing made him uneasy. People weren't meant to be seen like this, he thought. Bones.

"Mr. Malfoy is right," Snape said. "Close it up, Potter. Let the wizard rest in peace. He must have found some, as his ghost has never been reported as wandering the castle."

"Yes. All right," Potter said, and hissed again. The torch flickered out before the stone wall had completely lowered. It closed with a thump, and there was a slight hiss afterward, as if it were sealing itself closed.

"Do you suppose he lived with the Basilisk somehow?" Granger was saying. "Or did it escape confinement later, perhaps when a spell ended? Was Salazar Slytherin the original monster in the Chamber of Secrets? Not that I mean he was monstrous," she hurried to say, with a glance at the Slytherins, "but perhaps he encouraged the rumor that there was a monster in the chamber, to discourage investigation? Because I must admit that I have wondered how even a Basilisk could could live over a thousand years. Unless it spent most of the time hibernating or magically sleeping. Which could happen."

"I think I have discovered all I want to discover, for today," Snape said quietly, without acknowledging what she had said. "Let us return." He hefted his pack onto his back and began walking away from the statue. One by one the others fell in after him, with Malfoy at the end, as before. They passed the now fangless body of the Basilisk. Most of the Basilisk was still there, and went on to the doors, which opened to the hiss of The Boy Who Lived. They filed out, and marched along without speaking. Only when they were once again at the base of the pipe did anyone speak.

"What was *your* plan for getting us back up the pipe?" Snape asked Potter. There was a tone in his voice that suggested that he had not left everything to chance, that if he did not like Potter's suggestion, he had his own backup plan in hand.

"We modified some brooms to pull us up. Each one is strong enough to carry two, if you want to hang on to the back of one of us. Or we could send the brooms back down for you," Potter added. Draco noted that he did not suggest being the one left behind.

"We'll accept the lift," Snape said dryly. Draco wondered what his plan had been. Not as good as Potter's, or he'd have smugly suggested he would use his own transportation. It took some readjustment of their packs, but Potter went first, with Snape behind. Granger was in the middle, with a lot of the packs of Basilisk added to that broom, and last came Weasley, with Malfoy holding on. 

It took longer to worm their way up than it took to slide down. Draco hated it. He was not usually claustrophobic, but by the end of the trip up he was beginning to understand the phobia. The light was dim but as there was nothing to see but ancient pipe and ancient slime, perhaps that was all to the good. Glops of it fell on his robes, and on his face, and the air seemed close. 

His relief when he felt hands on his shoulders and he was pulled him from the pipe was genuine. He had new appreciation for the ancient lavatory, ghost and all. He stood up straight and took a deep happy breath. The air hardly smelled of anything. Lovely! It was only then that he realized how foul it was down there, how used to breathing that noisome air he had become.

"Just under five hours," Snape announced. "Excellent."

Briskly, Granger said, "We need to all go shower and get clean robes." No one argued that a cleaning spell would do just as well. "We also need to dismantle our backup system. If we weren't back by a certain time, we had arranged some rescue." She ignored Snape's expression of exaggerated amazement at the mention of such foresight. "Do you need help transporting the Basilisk parts down to your lab?" she asked Snape.

"No. Please turn over your dried skin packets," Snape ordered.

"Even the one for ourselves?" Weasley asked.

"No," Snape ordered briskly. He obviously had enough to levitate as it was. He headed out of the bathroom, a line of packages bobbing along behind. At the door he cast a containment spell around his packets and bundles. The Basilisk was odoriferous, to say the least.  
Abruptly, he left. The younger members of the expedition exchanged glances but also left without further conversation.


	4. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sexy bits start here

Draco went down to the dungeons a few steps after Snape, heading straight to his room to collect clean clothing, and then to the showers. Everything he had worn, except his boots, he cast an incendio on, happy to watch it burn. His shower was long and hot, with double sessions of his best smelling shampoo and conditioner, and a final body rinse which used an entire bottle. It felt wonderful to dry off, to slide into clean clothing. He headed down to lunch with a sailor's appetite. 

He ate more than he should have, and then went up to the library to check out the market price of Basilisk skin and parts. His eyes almost fell out of his head. The prices were per ounce and were astronomical. The preparation process was difficult, and he could see why the prices were high. Snape was going to have to do incredible work if he wanted to market those bits they had hauled out. But it would be worth it.

Draco next looked up the spells which used Basilisk parts. Dark, many of them. Would Snape sell to just anyone? Interesting moral problem for a Slytherin, because then those wizards or witches might brew up something to use against him, something that would allow them to steal the rest of his Basilisk ingredients. Although stealing them out of Hogwarts would not be easy. Snape was no easy target, either.

It was mid-afternoon now, the sun was bright outside. Malfoy put down his quill and decided to go out. He took his notes down to his room, found his light cloak, and went outside.

It was a blustery day. The wind tugged at the hem of his cloak and he pulled up his hood and went down the path to the lake. He hiked around the lake, his eyes out for plants which could be used for the ingredients assignment. He did find some wizard cress among the rocks of a small stream, and collected it up happily, working the pale green leaves up out of the water with patience. 

He spelled his clean handkerchief so that it was waterproof and folded away the leaves inside, tied it to his belt, and then tucked his freezing hands into his fur-lined pockets. He wandered off the path, not going anywhere in particular, just breathing in the fresh air and appreciating the sweetness of it. Eventually he came across one of Weasley's markers. According to the little sticks in the ground, the Forbidden Forest had gained another few inches. He scowled, and looked around, but saw no spiders or dangerous creatures. He moved several yards away before he transformed into his stoat form.

Ah! True freedom! He danced about, gave a few bucks that would make a wild stallion proud, and then went racing around, ducking under bushes and through clumps of grass in a frenzy of delight. His muscles sang as he leaped. Boing! He tried to go straight up, but failed the landing and tumbled across the grass. He was up and running in moments.

Bound! Bound! He ended with a somersault and went scratching his way up the bark of a small tree like a cat. He dared to inch out onto the springy end of a branch until it bent to the ground, and when he leaped off, it went shooting off on the rebound, flinging a scattering of last year’s leaves into the air. He chattered at it, dancing from one foot to another, batting at the leaves as they swirled down. Then tried it again. 

When that paled, he went nosing about for mice, and found one. Mmmm! Oh! It crunched like nothing else, and it was delicious. Every time he ate one, it struck him again how marvelous they were. He crouched under a prickly wild rose and licked his fur clean. He noticed that he had lost even more of his winter color, and was almost entirely brown on top now. His belly was losing it's bright white and turning yellow, too. He was disappointed that he hadn't discovered his form while it was winter, but his summer colors were attractive enough. He decided it was because he had never been in a drab color before. Since he was a baby, people had cooed over his pale good looks, and he was dressed in the most beautiful fabrics. Yet, here he was. Brown. A beautiful brown, it was true, but brown. He wondered if he could get a cloak in that shade. Perhaps an entire outfit?

He dozed under the bush for a few minutes before deciding he needed a proper nap, in some place where he did not have to worry about being ambushed. He wondered if the weasel was using his big, lovely burrow, and half wished he could go there to sleep. But it wasn't his. He would make one for himself. Bigger, and better. He remembered the little burrow he had made himself and trotted off to find it. Once there, he wormed his way down, coiled up, put his tail over his nose, and drifted off to sleep.

Blinking, he emerged after his hour-long nap, stretched, wormed his way out and trotted off to find another mouse. 

Instead, he found the giant weasel. He froze at the edge of a clearing, looking across at the big animal who was crouched down behind a low-sweeping branch of pine, looking out at him with an intent gaze. Would he attack if Draco came closer? Was their truce only for their first meeting, or would it hold?

Draco eased out into the open and looked hopefully across. He gave a little playful hop. The other merely continued to gaze at him. Draco tried another little hop, and then a roll. 

Nothing.

Did the weasel want him to give him another mouse? Draco had none to share. He sidled out into the clearing. Then he worked his way closer. The weasel did not move, only watched him approach.

At last, they were face to face. Draco reached out and touched his muzzle to the larger one before him. Sniff. He carefully circled, still sniffing. When he was back in front, he sat back on his haunches and and considered. What he really wanted to do was throw himself on the other, shove him over and wrestle around, the way you would with a sibling. Didn't dare. Finally, however, he got up the nerve to shove a shoulder against the other, lightly. 

That worked! The weasel shoved back. Draco gave him a nip, then, not hard, and got one in return. Shove, bite, ooops! Head over heels backwards! Woot! Hit him harder! Shove, nip, wriggle! Fun! Took-dook! Dook-took-dook!

It ended, inevitably, with the big beast sitting on him, holding him down with one big paw. He turned his most engaging expression up, he wiggled, but could not escape. The big weasel leaned down and licked him on his nose. He wiggled again. A few more licks, and then the weasel stopped and stared down at him solemnly.

That's when it happened. One moment he was being held down by a weasel, and the next moment it was a big human hand, freckled, with ginger hair sprinkled on the back and wrist, which held him down. He screeched, but the hand closed around him, pulling him up to the giant face.

"Who are you?" Ron demanded, his fingers making sure that the front stoat limbs were trapped. "Change back! Show me who you are!"

Here? While being held? It might hurt them both. He hissed and tried to scrabble and scratch with his hind paws, but he found them baffled by a fold of cloak. Trapped!

So he changed, and had the satisfaction of having his human weight bring them both down. He rolled, had his wand out and in Weasley's face in a second. "What do you think you're playing at?" he demanded.

Weasley had his own wand clutched in his hand. "I was asking you that!"

"I was just minding my own business!"

"If you could call it that!" 

"Well, I thought I was playing with a friend, but that appears to be false!" Draco practically spit. He was feeling a wave of disappointment and confusion. Loss. 

"Playing with fire, more like!" Weasley shouted.

The situation needed defusing, Draco decided. "How did you know I wasn't just a stoat?" he asked. 

"Smelled you. Down in the chamber. When I changed to look around once more, just before we packed up to leave. Knew you had to be one of our party, because there was only the one scent trail, and it wasn't there the first time I changed."

"So you did the same thing I did. Changed and checked it out. Where's the crime?" Draco asked. 

"You tell me." The freckled jaw was thrust out, the mouth was frowning.

"No crime. Except that I, and probably you, aren't registered." Draco smiled when that seemed to give Weasley pause. "So I won't tell and you won't. Neither of us are doing anything wrong. Just learning to use our new skill." Draco eased back a step, making his body language suggest that he wanted conciliation, not a fight. 

"Oh, hell," Weasley moaned suddenly, the tip of his wand falling an inch or two.

"What?" Draco asked, straightening up in a way that took him another step back.

"That means you were the stoat I played with the other day!"

Draco felt his face flush. Embarrassing. Well, nothing to do but bluff it through. "I’d never been scratched behind the ears. It could be your one real talent," he added, not being able to resist turning the compliment into an insult.

Weasley hardly noticed. "Oh, isn't this bloody wonderful," he whispered, and rather abruptly sat down. He leaned back against the tree behind him and closed his eyes. "Fudge, fudge, fudge."

"Fudge?" Draco echoed, confused. 

"You don't want me letting go with the profanity I actually feel like saying. Fudge is Hermione's version of a naughty word. Nothing more objectionable than the Minister for Magic, after all."

Draco couldn't help it, he giggled. Cornelius Fudge was an ass. Even Lucius Malfoy had thought so.

"Laugh now. Do you know how close I came to putting you in a cage and kidnapping you?" Weasley demanded.

"Kidnapping me?" Malfoy was indignant.

"I thought you were just a stoat."

"I am NOT 'just a stoat!' thank you very much! And just why do you go about abducting innocent stoats?"

Weasley sighed. "I am so screwed."

"Your personal problems are not my concern. Just start making some sense!"

"You’re half-inching your way away from me. Why bother sneaking? Just go away, and remember to keep your mouth shut about animagi, and I'll do the same," Weasley said. He let his head hit the tree with a thump and his eyes closed.

Once told to do so, Malfoy, of course, did not want to. "Answer my questions," he said autocratically. "Why in the world would you want to steal a stoat?"

"Because he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life?" Weasley suggested.

Draco was startled into taking a step forward. He was secretly flattered to be be described as beautiful. "What?"

"Beautiful. My stoat." It sounded almost as if the other were going to cry. Draco shifted uneasily, and then, glancing around, decided that he wanted to hear this. He sat down and waited for the other to go on.

"I wasn't very surprised by my form, you know," Weasley said, speaking as if he were almost talking to himself. "Weasley. Weasel. We got our name from the first of our ancestors who could change. There's been a Weasely who could turn into a weasel about once a generation, for hundreds of years. In fact, that's how the Burrow is passed on. Not to the oldest or anything like that. To the child who has the weasel form. I'd been hoping I took after my mother's family. On her side, it's big cats and fast birds, usually. But when I first managed to change, I already knew what I was before I even opened my eyes. Weasel."

"The biggest weasel in the world," Draco said, wondering what had prompted him to say that. It was almost flattery. Still. Keep him talking. This was vaguely fascinating.

"Not much comfort, if you were hoping for a lion or a hawk," Weasely said dryly. "But I was glad. I don't think any of my brothers can change. I worked bloody hard at this. I wanted to do something they couldn't. Even if it was turn into a weasel."

"I'd like to point out the irony of teasing me about being turned into a ferret in fourth year if you were destined to be a weasel yourself."

"Fuck off." It was said in a tired way, without any real emphasis behind it. "My grandfather," he went on, "was the last to have this form. Well, except for a cousin of my father's who died young. When my grandfather was young, he…fell in love, I guess you could say. With a weasel. A lady weasel."

'Dear me," Draco murmured, not kindly. He felt like laughing.

"He built a stone fence around part of the garden and made, back there, in what's the vegetable garden now, the most fantastic burrow ever. He lured her there, and they lived in the burrow. He brought her mice and rats and hares. She played with him, and they went out hunting together. Maybe he even mated with her, I don't know. But of course, those matings come to nothing. She wasn't locked up or anything, could go where she wanted. She left him sometimes, but she always came back to him, had babies, raised three litters in her lifetime. She lived six years, which was pretty long for a wild weasel. They say after she died, he never changed into a weasel again. Eventually he married a witch and they had ten children."

Only matings where both the male and the female were animagus of the same type of animal were fertile, unless one took a certain potion. Draco knew that. It had an odd fascination for him, as it probably did for other wizards and witches. Walking that close to the edge of bestiality. 

"I understood him perfectly, the moment I saw you. The stoat you, I mean. Even though you were a male, you were the most beautiful thing. And so brave, the way you went for that spider. Like a flash of lightning. So I had been thinking, planning, that when I left Hogwarts, I'd take you with me. To the Burrow."

"I wouldn't have liked that," Draco murmured, and then sat up straighter. "Wait! Are you in love with me?"

"No!" Weasley shouted. Then he said, "I don't know. Maybe. It's like you're two people. As a stoat, I think you're adorable, I mean, looking at you in my human form, you are a cute little animal, and soft and all. But I'm not attracted to you. That way. But when I'm a weasel, I think you're…you're wonderful. You smell great and you're great fun and you seemed to like me, too." The voice was full of misery. Loss.

Draco fought back a sound which tried to escape his throat. He did like the big weasel, when they were transformed. And he'd liked it when Weasely, as a human, had petted him the other day. Loved it. Possibly too much.

But…it was a Weasley. And Draco was a Malfoy. Malfoys were sophisticated and cosmopolitan and certainly able to make love to either sex, and they might fool around with men. For a bit. Then they found a wife, produced an heir or two, and were perfectly proper wizards. His father would have a heart attack if Draco had ever even hinted that….

But father was dead. Mother, too. Nobody except society in general to care if he didn't care himself. And he deserved some time to sow his wild oats. He remembered thinking about that not long ago. He pushed that thought away frantically, glad the other wizard had never studied the mental skills such as occlumency and legilimency. Gah!

"This is so typical," Weasley was saying in disgust. "Draco Malfoy. It had to be Malfoy. Whom I hate. With reason. Lots and lots of reasons. Who hates me. Of course. Couldn't I have just fallen for some forest ferret? Save her from Hagrid or something? But no. I have to fall for the most stuck-up stoat in the world."

"I say!" Draco yelped in protest. But…fallen for…had he really?

Weasley went on muttering, "Thirty years it was, between the time his weasel died and he found a lady he could love. With my luck…."

"My father used to say a man made his own luck," Draco cut in, and smirked when Weasley's head came up so fast he thumped it into the tree.

"Ow!" Weasley said, rubbing the back of his head. 

"Aw. Shall I kiss it and make it better?"

He was only joking, he thought as he grabbed a handful of long ginger hair and pulled. He thought he was only joking right up to the point that his lips landed on Weasley's. Only somewhere between the point when their lips touched and when they parted half a minute later, something changed.

"Oh my god," Weasley croaked out, his hand coming to his mouth as if to touch the actual kiss. Or rub it out. "Oh, hell," he whimpered, trembling. His mouth moved as if he were talking but nothing came out except a small whimper. 

"Oh, shut it," Draco Malfoy said, and kissed him again. And again, as they slumped over sideways. He stopped the kiss, hauled the idiot upright, twisted them until the tree was no longer behind, and then pushed him flat to the ground. Where he once again applied the kiss. 

"Mmpmf?" Weasley's eyes were wide open. Showed a nice color of blue, but a touch of panic, too. Draco wasn't paying a lot of attention. He was lost in a very strange expedition of discovery. 

Draco was sure that he had stopped growing, that he was as tall as he would get, a man. Tall, slim and elegant. Not small or dainty, but not a big bruiser either. He'd been around bigger boys most of his life. Crabbe and Goyle had stood at his shoulders for years. But he had never felt their size the way he felt Weasley's size at this moment. Shoulders wider, arms longer, thighs like trees. Well, small trees. Solid. Just so solid. He smelled like a man, and it filled his nostrils. On impulse he wormed one hand under the robe, under the shirt, to touch skin. And hair. His fingers tangled in rough curly hair.

Draco, who had a few dozen modest and almost invisible hairs on his own chest, caught his breath. It occurred to him suddenly that if you didn't have these outward signs of masculinity yourself, if your boyfriend had them, then they were somehow yours as well. 

Weasley seemed to find some of his wits, and he struggled to shift Draco's weight. Draco protested, but an arm came around him, there was a push and suddenly their roles were reversed. There was a big man on top of him, pressing him into the dirt. He blinked as he realized how incredible it felt. His insides were turning to mush. He parted his legs, shifting so that the larger man settled firmly between them, pressing their groins together. 

"Weasley? You've stopped the kissing. Go back to kissing me," he ordered. He was surprised, though, when he was obeyed. Oh. Ah, ah! His hips moved, pressing up. His cock was turning to solid iron. But that was okay. Weasley's was, too. 

"This is insane!" Ron managed to moan when their lips finally parted. 

"But it feels so good!" Draco explained. "Take off your robe."

"Out here?" Weasley gasped.

They were close to the castle. Anyone could come along. They needed a better place. Preferably one with a bed. "I suppose you're right. We'll find something more comfortable," Draco promised. "Why don't you kiss me some more, first?"

It must have sounded reasonable. Against all previous presumptions, it turned out that Weasely's big mouth was good for something. Draco's mind kept supplying images of something else a nice big mouth might be good for. It was rapidly turning Malfoy into a gibbering idiot. When once again their lips parted, he was huffing like the Hogwarts express. And not caring a jolt. 

"I want you," he murmured into the moist neck, and he buried his nose against the freckled skin. Freckles didn't seem to be the drawback he had once imagined. In fact, they were just the color of a weasel's fur, which somehow made them sexy as hell. 

He grunted as Weasley scrabbled off and sat up. He was protesting until he was scooped up in the large arms and held to that lovely hard chest. "This is crazy," the red-head gasped.

"In a good way," the blond assured him, and strained to connect their mouths again. He was quite annoyed when the other was not at all cooperative. He shifted on the other's lap. "You want me," he said seductively.

Weasley surprised him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and turned into a weasel. Draco hit the ground with a thump, arched his back in outrage, and shifted into his own form. The weasel, his eyes wild, turned and ran.

The stoat was after him like a shot. They slid around the trees so low to the ground that their belly fur dragged the dirt, snaked through the brush, leaped from rock to rock. Draco's little lungs were practically bursting when the weasel dashed into a burrow. Draco recognized it as Weasley's own weasel burrow. Draco was after him like a shot, and then they were together in the warm nest, together in the dark. All the intense feeling, the lust, was gone with the change, but an animal affection remained. They lay panting until they caught their breath, and then licked each other's fur, their long bodies stretched out and pressed against one another. Eventually, they curled around each other, Weasley on the outside, Malfoy a tight wad of stoat in the middle. After more licking and nudging, they eventually just slept. 

When they woke, they went hunting together, seeking out mice, and then, later, a pair of voles fell to their clever cooperation. 

It was getting dark when first Weasely, and then Malfoy, released the bands of magic which held them in their animal forms, and rose up as men again. They stood in the gloom, staring at each other, and then in mutual, if silent accord, they began walking towards the castle. 

"Have we missed supper?" Weasley asked quietly as they entered the big doors. 

"Looks like there is still food on the table. Look. Weasley. We have to talk. Meet me…."

"Tomorrow," said Weasley swiftly. He didn't meet Malfoy's eyes.

"In the library."

"No. At…at…"

The astronomy tower was out. It was the traditional lover's trysting spot, but neither of them could even give voice to that thought. They didn't want to meet in public, but the private places were either hard to get to or too…fraught. 

Weasley said, tentatively, "In the Olwry."

"Not good. Too many people. That statue of Geoff the Grim at the head of the stairs to the dungeons. There's some holes behind it. We could explore."

"Fine. When?"

Draco considered. "In the evening. Seven."

"Okay." They lingered awkwardly for a moment, and then Weasely dashed off to the dining room to join his friends. Draco, full of vole, decided to return to his room. He had a great deal of thinking to do. There turned out to be no one in the common room, so he sat before the fire, his arms wrapped around his knees, watching the dancing flames and trying to figure out how life could change so very much in one day.


	5. The chapter with the sexy bits

Kissed. 

Weasley.

Going to do it again. 

With That Weasley. The most annoying of them all. The one who was friends with Potter. And the Mudb.... No, he couldn't use that word, ever again. Agh. He clutched his head, which was developing a headache. Too much adventure for one day. Dead Basilisks were bad enough. On top of it there was this…this inexplicable Thing. With Weasley. 

When the students began to filter back, he went up to his room. He was too restless to study, the words jumped before his eyes. He turned into a stoat and explored his own room, then changed back and went for a hot shower. He came back to his room and wanked to visions of red hair and a pointed weasel face. He fell asleep on top of his duvet, and woke, chilled, at midnight to finally crawl under the warm bedding. 

The next day was Sunday. It was hard work not to stare over at the Gryffindor table at breakfast. The redhead never looked in his direction. This annoyed Draco. The trio didn't show at lunch. Draco went through the motions of studying, choosing what to wear, watching the clock, planning. He was early at their rendezvous, and jumped when he heard the steps on the stone floor. A step he could already recognize. As soon as Weasley stopped before the statue, Draco stepped out from behind it and said, "I know where we can go to talk. Follow me."

They walked past the gargoyles which guarded the headmaster's office and down the corridor to the guest quarters. "This is where my father stayed, the last time he came to Hogwarts," Draco whispered. "They haven't changed the password since then. Darkness," he whispered. The door opened and he led the way in. The candles automatically lit as the door shut behind them.

It was a fine room. The furnishings were black, grey, cream and gold, elegant and understated. There was a huge high bed in the corner. Draco saw Weasley glance at it nervously. 

"Are you afraid of that?" Draco asked, tilting his head towards the bed, taking a seat on one of the two big chairs facing the cold fireplace. He cast a warming charm on the room.

"Not...afraid. But. It's crazy. I was just saying I wasn't attracted to men, and then you kissed me and…." The blue eyes reflected misery. It made Draco's stomach clench.

"But…would you?" Draco wanted to know. Needed to know.

"I…yeah. I would. Stupid as that seems to me, yeah." He looked at Draco directly and said, "Even though I know you'll hurt me, one way or another."

It was almost guaranteed that they would hurt each other. But Draco had lived his life ignoring things he didn't want to deal with. That was the future, and he was only interested in now. So he stood up, went to the bed, and pulled back the covers to reveal the white sheets. "Come to bed, Ronald."

"Ron. Just Ron," Weasley said stubbornly.

"Then, call me Draco," Draco insisted, meeting his eyes. He began, one handed, to unfasten the clasp of his own robe. He kept his eyes on Weasley, who was following his lead, although with some reluctance. The clothes were laid aside carefully until even their stockings were off.

Beautiful. Draco's mouth went dry. Did he really just think that about a Weasely? But look at the man. Look at those…shoulders. A waist that was both slim and yet substantial. Long, muscled legs and arms. The freckles covered his shoulders like a cloak, falling away over his torso and building up again on his legs. Healthy tufts of hair could be seen at his armpits and groin. A swirling lot of it on his chest trailed away down his abdomen, and bits of it glinted in the candlelight like copper wire. 

It made him feel almost small and delicate beside that solid maleness. He seemed more naked, now that there was Weasley to see him that way. He wanted to touch, but Ron turned and crawled up onto the bed. The curve of his buttock, the long line of his leg, made Draco shiver. He followed, and they were soon settled under the covers, side by side. 

Ron turned onto his side. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"No. Do you?"

"I watched, once, in the showers."

Draco was interested, "Watched what?"

"Watched…one boy. Suck somebody."

"We could do that." Draco dared to reach out and touch Ron's chest. His fingers trailed through the hair there, carding it. Petting it. "Is that what you want?"

"I want to…" The red that flushed his face came from below his neck. Draco touched there. The skin was hotter where the red was. 

"You want to have me." Draco wanted it, too. "I don't…have anything." The other was well endowed. Draco shook at the thought of that bigness shoving into him. 

"I don't think I could do that. Well. Yet." That confession was accompanied by another wave of red. Draco jumped as he felt a fumbling hand settle on his belly, then the slide of it down to his cock. Holding it. Like holding hands. He pushed into it. His own hands reached out. 

"Oh. My big…weasel," Draco said, amused. Who would have suspected that Weasley hid something so substantial under his robes? It was growing under his fingers, the skin smooth and moist. He explored the size of it, the textures and features, learning what made it unique. Then Ron was turning, covering him, holding him down, thrusting against him. Draco gasped, shoved up into warmth and with only the help of their hands they almost instantly reached the peak and spilled against each other. 

Draco pulled the cover over their heads, making a burrow of the heavy, down filled cloth. In the dark close space they kissed, lips sliding over the skin, shoulders to neck to arms to chest, coming back again and again to ravish the lips and mouth, then finding other points to plot. Chin. Jaw. Ear, and behind the ear. Neck. Then following the line down to the curve of the hard male breast. Weasley's big mouth fastened on the points of Malfoy's nipples, licking, worshiping, and then sliding down so that his long sharp nose dipped into the crevice between arm and body.

It made Draco laugh. Wiggle. Change. They transformed while still intertwined, morphing from human to animal, and then they were chasing each other through the tunnels human limbs had made in the bedclothes. Finally, Draco poked his head out and noted where the lump of Weasley-weasel was. He eased out, sprang up and came down hard on the lump under the covers.

Weasel scream. Fast weasel feet, and Ron-weasel had exploded out from under the covers after him. They chased each other over the soft velvet, leaping and making weasel-giggle chittering sounds. Leaping from the footboard, the headboard, the curtains, bouncing down on the bed like it was a trampoline, they played until they were exhausted. Then they changed back and dozed in the big bed, cold feet against each other's legs, Ron's big arm draped over him.

"I never thought you'd know what fun is," Ron murmured into his neck.

"Is that an insult? I never thought you'd be a good lover," Draco countered.

Ron tightened his arm and asked, "Was I good? Really? You know. I've never been with a man before and I don't have that much experience with women, either."

"Or a stoat?" Draco asked, smiling into the mass of red hair pressed against his chest. "And yes. You're good."

"You, too," Weasley whispered. Then he said, "They're going to wonder where we are."

"What are you going to tell them?"

"I dunno." He sounded quite worried.

"Tell them you were with an exotic, beautiful lover. You don't have to say my name."

"Like they'll believe that. And you don't know my friends. If I say something like that, they won't let up until they know. Hermione, especially." He turned over. "How will we…will we…could you stand to have everyone know?"

"That I have a boyfriend?" Draco asked. 

"A Weasley boyfriend. I've heard your opinion about Weasleys." His voice was stilted. Careful.

"You heard my father's opinion. Coming out of my mouth. As required of me as my father's heir," he added. "Besides, anyone intelligent can change their mind. I have, several times."

"About He Who…?"

"Exactly. But be practical, Weasely. It's only been hours. We have to understand exactly what's going on before we tell people. Tomorrow you could hate me again. After all, it isn't me. It's a stoat you want." His voice was careful, also.

"No, it's more, now. More than my stoat. We…we can't divide it, can we?"

Draco felt his heart lurch. But he said was, "Don't be in a hurry to tell your friends. First we have to…become comfortable with it."

"Find out what it is, really." Weasley agreed.

"Precisely." Weasley was smarter than Draco had ever imagined. Just not overly articulate, apparently. They were silent together for a few more minutes.


	6. Acromantula!

"We have to go," Ron said at last, sitting up. Silently they climbed out of bed. Ron knew a bed-straightening charm. They dressed silently. Then Ron took a tentative step towards the door, even as he turned back to look over his shoulder. "Should we…be seen together?"

"We won't be," Draco told him. "You'll walk out of here. I won't be anywhere in sight."

"But…."

"I," Draco said, half explanation, half command, "will be under your robes, in my stoat form. You'll carry me. Against your skin, I think. I want to know what that feels like."

Weasley turned that color of red again. Draco flashed his sauciest grin, straightened his shoulder seam and then transformed. The stoat climbed up the robes as if Ron were a tree, and wiggled his way under the robes, and then under the jumper. Weasley moaned at the brush of soft fur against his skin. Draco gave a chittering stoat laugh back. 

 

Draco was exploring a bit as Ron cautiously looked out into the corridor, and then stepped out, closing the door softly behind him. Their progress down the hall was slow, because the stoat was shifting around, trying to find a position that held him in place and didn't cause him to lose his grip and slide down that smooth expanse of chest and ribs. Ron didn't seem to appreciate his claws. Finally, he anchored himself at the neck of Ron's jumper, his little snout poking out but hidden by the fall of red hair.

He was in that position as they were approaching the headmaster's door. He felt, against his body, the inhalation of Ron's breath as the door slid open and Professor McGonnagal stepped out.

"Ah! Uh…good morning, professor..I mean, evening," Ron stammered. Draco rolled his stoat eyes and thought about biting him. Ron sounded so guilty and the old bat was sure to get suspicious. But she didn't. She murmured good evening in reply and turned and went the opposite direction from them. 

Draco was paying no attention to her, though. He was frozen in place, wondering if his nose was working right. He took a deep breath as Ron walked past the open door. Now the door was closing. 

Draco surged up, his mouth nipping Ron's ear. Ron muffled a screech and looked around wildly. McGonnagal was out of sight. Ron pulled the slim stoat out from his collar, turning his head away from the scrabbling feet as he gave the flailing stoat a toss towards the floor. Draco changed in mid air, hit the floor crouched low, scrambled up, looked behind him, and ran like his tail was on fire. Ron automatically ran after him. 

"Draco! What's wrong?" he gasped as they hit the stairs, which swung them away at once, lifting towards the next level. Draco cursed, obviously wanting to go in the opposite direction. 

"Snape! Have to see Snape!" Draco managed to say, dashing off as soon as the stairs touched down. He was running so fast he slid on the corners, his blond hair, combed into place only minutes ago, now in total disarray. Ron doggedly followed him to a new set of stairs, then down one, two, three flights to the dungeon. He caught up with Draco as the other was banging like mad on the door to Snape's office.

The door swung open. "I hope you have a…" was as far as Snape got before Draco pushed him aside, plunging in to the room. Ron went white and gulped audibly but followed him in. 

"Something's wrong," Weasely said, breathlessly. "Draco! What is it?" he asked as Draco fell to his knees and began to vomit all over Snape's floor. "What is it?" he demanded, his voice going up to a panicked screech.

Draco coughed, spit, and then managed to choke out one word.

"A…acromantula!"

Snape's wand vanished the mess on his floor even as his other hand grabbed Draco's collar and hauled him to his feet. "What do you mean?" he asked, his eyes black and glittering. 

Draco looked wildly at Ron, who must have realized that Draco wanted to explain, but their secret got in the way. "It's okay," Ron said soothingly. "It's fine. Tell us!"

"The headmaster…his office! We were passing by when the door opened. It's…it stinks! It stinks of acromantula in there!" Draco cleared his throat and said, "I know what it is. What that smells like. From when we killed the little one," he explained, to Ron. "What if it's IN there?" He was shaking.

"Mr. Malfoy," Snape began sternly, "if this nonsense is…."

Draco interrupted, "No, I smelled it! I was in my…my animagus form and I smelled it!" With that he turned into a stoat and leaped for Ron. Weasely caught him in his arms and held him close, crooning, "It's okay, sweetie, relax! I can feel your heart, it's like it's trying to beat its way out of your chest! It's okay!"

Draco transformed again, causing Weasley to stagger back against the wall. "It's not okay! It's not!" Then he switched back again, making pitiful stoatly cries against Ron's warm neck. 

Snape was, for once, without words. He stared at Weasley, then at the stoat, then back at the young man. "Calming draught," he finally said. There was relief in his tone, as if he had gladly found the part of the disaster which could be addressed with potions. "Bring him this way," he ordered, and led them to his stock room. He quickly located a blue bottle, uncorked it, and demanded, "Become human, Malfoy!" Draco obeyed, one arm still around Weasley's neck, and their teacher poured the entire contents into his mouth. "Swallow that and sit down. Do not shift into the other form until that has a chance to get into your system."

They were back in the office. Snape pulled forth a chair, Ron eased Draco down onto it, standing behind him but leaning over a bit so that he still kept a hand on Draco's shoulder.

"How in the world did this disturbing event come to pass," Snape asked, gesturing towards them. He didn't seem upset when he wasn't answered. He watched Weasley awkwardly alternate between patting Malfoy on the shoulder and sliding his fingers into Draco's hair, soothingly, as if petting him. 

When the draught seemed to have worked and Draco's breath had slowed, Snape said, "Now. Start again. Explain it all."

Weasley spoke first. "I was carrying Malfoy in his stoat form. We were passing the headmaster's door when it opened. Professor McGonnagal came out. Draco got a whiff of the air and went crazy. He bit me," he said, amazed, his free hand going to his ear. "Changed and went running down here like a mad thing."

Malfoy nodded. "It stinks in there. It smells…evil."

"And Minerva McGonagal came from there?" Snape questioned. 

"She didn't ask us why we were there or anything," Ron realized slowly. "She didn't act like herself."

Snape was walking now, pacing back and forth in front of them. "Perhaps it explains…Dumbledore has been absent-minded and obscure recently, even for him. I must admit I was dismayed when I discovered he had given you permission to go down to the Chamber of Secrets. When I questioned him about it he was most annoyingly vague…but…acromantula? What could it…if there is one…perhaps…?"

He was plainly thinking out loud. Draco put up his hand and closed it, hard, around Ron’s, because the big hand was trembling.

"How could Dumbledore be...if there's an acromantula in there…." Ron gave a huge shudder. It was obvious he did not like even thinking about spiders. 

"Acromantula venom is used in dark potions which compel," Snape said. "The question is, is someone using such a potion on our headmaster, or is there an actual giant spider in his rooms." Snape said it so calmly. "An investigation is in order."

"So is action. We have to get him out of there," Ron said firmly.

"So we do, but we'll have no Gryffindor heroics. Or at least not yet. We have preparations to make. Weasely, I shall want you to go to your common room and inform Potter, Finnigan and Thomas that they have detention and they are expected immediately in the potions laboratory. Convince Granger to come along to argue their case. Mr. Malfoy, you will go the the Slytherins and inform Greengrass and Tole that I need them to clarify points in their last essay. Do not speak of this in the corridors, in case they are monitored. Then go fetch from Ravenclaws Crow and Amberstall, from Hufflepuff, Bones and Sorkay, telling them they are needed for a potions project. Go now. Time is of the essence."

Ron helped Draco up and they headed for the door even as Snape began gathering up books and vials. Once outside the door, Ron gave one last awkward pat on Draco's shoulder and then turned and hurried away. He didn't see Draco watch him for a moment before he headed in the opposite direction.

The students from the other houses were already there when Weasley herded in his Gryffindors, and Snape was speaking to them intently. As the Gryffindors entered, Snape waved them to benches and continued. "I shall need you to work in cooperation. Pretend you are adults. Try. We face the possibility that there is an acromantula in the castle. The intent of an acromantula, or the people behind it, can not be benign. I believe at least a portion of the staff has been compromised and can not help us. Trust none, as we don't know how many are affected. We have no idea how big the spider is or how entrenched it might be. Potter, you, Finnigan and Thomas will help me make a potion which will repel and damage arachnids. We will be making a Basilisk infusion, so you will work with gloves. Malfoy, you and Granger will be making a potion which dissolves webs. Greengrass and Tole will be preparing vessels for our potions and be distributing and preparing ingredients. I have sealed the doors. Don't leave without my express permission. I do not want the scent of our work in the corridors." His air of command, of competence, changed his entire demeanor. He looked like a leader, and surprisingly, he looked younger, too. Almost like a different man. Draco was trying to figure out if this was Snape's natural persona, or if he had put it on for the occasion. It was effective, at any rate. The students obeyed him without their usual muttering or any outward rancor.

"All of you will be doing some practice on shield charms and defensive forces." Snape went on.

"And Granger is going to show us her leg breaking spell," Draco added loudly.

Snape lifted an eyebrow, nodded, and began to hand out instruction papers. Then he waved towards the ingredient cabinets. The seventh year students were well trained at this point and could follow Snape's potion directions well. This work was nasty. He had the Gryffindors slicing dried Basilisk into thin strips, mixing it with garlic oil and then adding distilled water. Then they had to beat the mixture with whisks. It smelled sour and toxic. Snape himself was doing something with Basilisk ribs, which were boiling in a huge cauldron. 

At midnight they stopped long enough for a snack meal and coffee. By two, Granger had started a caldron simmering and began to add the ingredients for the base of their assigned potion. Malfoy had let her take charge of the potion. He knew that his obedience to her directions was unsettling to her. It was a little unsettling to him, as well. He tried to be intently focused on the potion, refusing to let his mind replay memories of what he and Weasley had done in that big guest bed just a few hours ago, or to the horror of having an acromantula in the castle. 

It was almost dawn when they were finished. Snape told them that there was no time to sleep, or to try to convince the aurors to act. They must do it now. He cast protective spells and glamour spells that made it hard to see who they were and how many were in the group. Each student was armed with two spray dispensers except Snape, who had what Dean called, with some admiration, a flame thrower. 

"I go first. I take care of the doors," Snape said. "The spiral staircase insures a group can not storm the room, you will have to come in one by one, it can not be helped. Malfoy and Weasley will locate Professor Dumbledore, immobilize him if need be, as he might fight against us, and get him out the door. If the way is clear, take him to the hospital wing. Assume that he might not be himself, that he can not be trusted. Do not turn your back on him, and disarm him if he has a wand on him." 

“But he's the greatest wizard of his age! How can we go against him?” Weasley asked, horrified at the thought of raising against the headmaster, even two to one.

“With luck he will be in no shape to resist, or will be under the control of the acromantula which will slow him down. You will have to rely on the element of surprise,” Snape told him.

He turned to the others. "Tole, Bones, enter last and if there are other people there, deal with them. The rest of us deal with the acromantulas. Yes, assume there are more than one. If we can, we will capture at least one creature. I wish to speak to the acromantula, but do not risk your lives to make this happen. I'd rather it dead than a student. Greengrass, Crow, you will not enter the headmaster's chamber. You will remain outside, one on the stairs guarding the way out, the other out in the corridor, wands out. Prevent anyone from entering, but use no fatal curses. You may be going up against Professor McGonnagal and other teachers. Do your best. Don't hurt any weasels, which are animagus wizards on our side. Questions?"

There were none, except for Potter, who was going second and wanted to know more about Snape's approach to the inner door. When Snape had finished telling him, in terse words, the group left the dungeons. They advanced silently. It was odd to meet no one in the corridors, no one on the stairs. He could feel the tension as they stopped before the door.

Snape said loudly, "Sugar quills." The door did not open. Draco expected him to try more passwords, or blast it open. What he did was put one hand flat against the gargoyle and say, "If it is for the good of Hogwarts, you will open for me."

He took his hand away. They waited. There was a grinding noise, and the gargoyle stepped aside and the door opened. Everyone took a firm hold on their wands. Snape went in. Potter followed. The staircase seemed to be moving agonizingly slowly. The only other sound was the harsh breathing of the students.

When the door opened and Snape and Potter stepped in, the office was quiet. Dumbledore was at this desk and looked up. He seemed older, and looked as if he had shrunk a bit. “Did I forget an appointment, Severus?" he asked, blinking at them.

"Yes, I think you did," Snape said, coming forward. "I hope you have time to talk to us?" He moved slowly, and the others quietly spread out on either side of the door, eyes darting about, wands out, spray bottles at hand.

"Yes, dear boy?" Dumbledore said, standing up. He began to hobble towards them, in the manner of one who has been sitting too long. Draco wondered if he had been up all night, and why.

Everything seemed to explode at once. From above their heads there came a hiss which became a scream as an acromantula dropped from the ceiling. It was not as big as Aragog, but it was almost as tall as a man, its legs ten feet long. It was a yellowish color on it's underside, each plate outlined with a darker brown. The pattern of that segmented ventral coming down would be imprinted on their nightmares for months. Shield charms went up, and the underside of the beast pressed against the shields, legs scrabbling for purchase. There were shouts, hexes, and the spray was used by five of the wizards at once, creating a cloud of green, vile smelling gas that rose up around them all. They had to let the shield charm fade to get the spray to the target.

Fangs dripping, the giant spider rushed for Snape, just as Hermione sent her leg breaking curse and Finnigan sprayed the anti-webbing spray at the sticky substance which was coming from two places at the rear of the spider. A spider foot was already gathering the web strand up, tossing loops of it out at them. 

Perspective changed for Draco as he collapsed into his stoat form and headed for the walls of the room, Ron in weasel form right behind him. They ran incredibly fast, darting along beneath the shelter of the furniture when they could. The spider did not seem to see them. When they were near Dumbledore, they dashed out to the old wizard, who stood as if he was frozen. From this angle, the spider looked as big as a house. Just as Draco and Ron reached Dumbledore, the man was knocked over by one of the spiders legs, and a loop of the webbing was cast over him. 

Ron and Draco had to turn back to human to lift up the old man. Thomas was using the de-webbing spray liberally on the loop of web over Dumbledore's legs, as Draco cast a protective shield charm on Dumbledore and grabbed the old man's shoulders to pull him towards the door. Draco pulling, Ron, wand out, hexing to cover their retreat, they moved towards the exit. It was hard to maneuver with a battle going on in the middle of the room. They twice they came within inches of a thrown hex from their own side, and once a spray of venom arched over their heads.

Who knew spiders could hiss and scream like that? Two students were binding the four back legs together because even broken, the spider was using them. The thing was still trying to get to them, flailing out with the front legs, spitting venom at the others. Furniture crashed and the knick knacks which filled the office rained down and some of them smashed on the floor. 

But the Basilisk spray worked well. The acromantula hated it, was convulsing as the spray settled onto its furry abdomen, its eyes, it's legs. In only a few minutes, the monster was wrapped in binding spells, lying motionless in the center of the room. The Basilisk spray and the anti-webbing spray were making small oily pools on the floor and footing was tricky.

Draco and Ron got the headmaster down the stairs easily enough, but ran into a problem at the foot, where their two guards, wands out, faced several teachers, including the deputy headmistress. 

"Professor McGonnagal, the headmaster is hurt! Help us get him to the hospital wing!" Weasley called out. She didn't answer. It was like the woman was a zombie. She ignored him, and cast a stunning hex at the students in front of her. Ron countered. Draco eased the headmaster down and cast a net charm.

The instructors should have been a formidable force. But McGonnagal, Sinistra and Vector were shouting and hexing not only the students, but the other teachers. When Professor Flitwick stepped in on the side of the students, other teachers joined him.

The net charms turned the tide and soon it was over. Leaving Greengrass to guard the door, the rest of the students escorted the entire lot up to the hospital wing. Pomfrey was outraged to see some of the teachers tied up, but Weasley soon explained and soothed her down. Leaving the other student to help Pomfrey, Draco and Ron hurried back to the headmaster's tower.

They found two Gryffindors, Thomas and Finnigan, guarding the spider. One stood at each end, wands out, turned so that they were facing the beast. Draco nodded to them and followed Weasely into a passage at the back of the office. They followed the sounds of the voices to find Snape, Potter, Amberstall and Granger in a large bedroom. They were collecting large balls the size of quaffles, and incinerating them by dropping them into Snape's fire-belching tube. 

When they got closer, Draco could see why. The spheres were spider eggs, so near to hatching that they could see in almost fully formed spiders within the translucent rubbery skin. The little spiders were even moving their legs, as if trying to force their way out. Their eyes glittered, silver and malevolent, from inside. 

"Twenty-four!" Granger counted out, as smoke swirled up from the crackling, burning tube.

Snape said, "They often have more than a hundred eggs in a clutch. We need to find every single one." He turned to the Malfoy and Weasely and said, "Have Granger tell you the spell we are using to locate them, and begin collecting. Did you have any problems?"

Ron said, "Some of the teachers tried to attack us. Dropped the entire lot off at the hospital wing. Tole is down below now, guarding the bottom door. Something is definitely wrong with McGonnagal, Vector, and Sinistra, too. Anybody looked under the bed?" Was that where he hid his own contraband? How unoriginal.

"Potter did, and there are some there, yes," he said briefly. "We will have to disassemble all the furniture, check all wardrobes and cabinets, just in case. Get busy. These are close to hatching."

They were, indeed. In fact, one of them even hatched, but Ron discovered it and blasted it into ash. "I hate spiders," he explained, as the smoke cleared and the bits of charred spiderling began dropping off the walls.

By mid-morning, Granger had fine-tuned her locating spell and they had found the last of the 168 eggs tucked between two robes in the wardrobe. Exhausted, they ate the breakfast brought to them by distraught hose elves. They were sitting on the floor of Dumbledore's office, as not a single chair had survived the battle; the acromantula was a bizarre centerpiece for the simple feast. Snape was morosely scowling at it while gnawing on a sausage roll. Then he lifted his voice. "You. Spider! Do you talk?"

The voice came out in a thin, high, ugly hiss. "How dare you call one of us a ssspiiiider! We are more than that! More!" 

"Acromantula, if you will, then," Snape said. "You can speak. I am impressed. Spiders, of course, can not. How did you come to be here?"

"Not tell!" There was mocking in the hiss, a dark laughter.

"Won't you? I wonder how your kind feels pain? Did it hurt when your legs were broken?" he asked. His attitude was one of scientific curiosity. 

"When I am free I am going to eat you," their captive told him. 

"He'll taste bad," Ron assured the spider. 

Potter elbowed him, whispering, "Ron!" quite loudly.

"I wonder if veritaserum would work," Granger said. 

"It would take a whole bottle for something that big!" Harry said.

"Then it is fortunate the headmaster used to keep an entire bottle in his desk," Snape said. He got up and rummaged through the drawers until he found it. "Ah. Of course, there is the problem of how to administer it."

"Yes, spiders have filtration systems on the way to the stomach are so effective they can even screen out bacteria and viruses," Granger said. "And of course, despite her claim, acromantula are basically spiders. Perhaps injection?"

"I am afraid that my knowledge of arachnid anatomy is not as precise when a creature of this size is involved," Snape said. "I suppose we could stab here and there until we found something like the circulatory system. I have sharp Basilisk ribs we can use."

"Noooooo!" the creature screamed.

"I like that idea," Draco said promptly.

The Ravenclaw, Landra Crow, appeared in the door. "Madam Pomfrey would like me to report that she has the teachers sorted out. Very embarrassing, we had to ask everyone to undress, because we thought that we would find spider bites or wounds, where venom had been injected, but we didn't. But some of the robes had venom in the cloth. So everyone had to take a shower and get new robes, brand new ones never worn before. Everyone will be fine, eventually, she thinks. She reports that it was contact with the venom that allowed the acromantula to control the teachers. She said it spit on them, or perhaps it was a drool or drip. Affected were," she paused to count out the names of five teachers and three students on her fingers. "The headmaster, he was worst. Next were Professor McGonnagal and Professor Vector. Then the ones with just a affected a little were Professor Sinistra and Madam Hooch. Madam Pomfrey has those first three tied to beds right now and says they will all have to be with her for about ten days while the toxins leave the system. The other two only have to stay for 24 hours for observation. They'll have to be confined to the room, and they can't be near any more acromantulas. She also wants to know if this one is dead and can she have some venom for testing."

Snape said, "It's alive. SO far. If it proves useless, I will just kill it. It will make useful Potion ingredients." 

The beast made a clattering and hissing sound of protest.

"I may have to anyway, if it can't survive having all eight legs broken," Snape said. 

"Wasp brain! Flobberworm juice!" the spider growled out.

"Wasp brain!" Ron said, giving Harry a push.

"Flobberworm juice," Harry retorted, shoving back. They both giggled.

"Gentlemen. I believe I suggested we all act with maturity during our little offensive?" Snape said with exasperation.

"Right," said Ron, with a nod. "I vote we kill it now. Then we can get some sleep. I'm tired."

"First, we will try to discover why it is here, and how it came to be in this room. Or none of us will sleep well," Snape said. He pulled out from his robe a section of sharpened Basilisk rib, eyed the creature in front of him, and then strode up to it. His arm came up, and he swung down hard on a section of abdomen with the knife-like end of the rib. The spider screeched. Snape rather cruelly twisted the bone back and forth in the wound until it was a size he liked, and then, still holding the rib in the wound, he poured in a third of the bottle of veritaserum. 

While he waited for it to become effective, Snape walked around the body, inspecting the raw, burned looking places where the Basilisk spray had touched, and the legs, whose hard shells were cracked like crab legs, and now leaked yellow puddles of goo onto the carpet. 

"You are big. How did you come to be in the castle?" Snape asked after ten minutes had gone by. 

"A wizard made another wizard bring me. Some wizards are good. Not all of them are food." She said it as if to convince herself, as if it were something repeated over and over so as not to be forgotten.

Snape stared at her for a moment. "You were carrying eggs. So it can't be long ago. Less than two months."

"Was small. Too early for laying eggs, but wizards can make a web warm, make the eggs come out. They sent me here, to the warm place. Now I'm cold again. Make me warm."

To the surprise of the students, Snape lifted his wand and cast a warming charm. 

"Hey," Ron protested. 

Draco leaned closer to him and whispered, "Warm means better circulation, and the veritaserum will more easily find her brain. It makes him appear to be benevolent, and the prisoner talks more. We shall see if it works on spiders."

"Acromantula, if you please," Ron whispered back, grinning. Granger gave them a funny look. 

Warm spider smelled even worse than a cold one. It did seem to revive her. She moved, restlessly, testing her bonds. 

"After the little ones hatched, what was to happen?" Snape asked.

"Then, at last, I would be allowed to eat. I wasn't to eat anything but the smallest of prey until it was time." She was whining, and it was even less attractive in a spider than in a human. "You've taken away the nest-father. I was to eat him first. He would make me strong," she said mournfully. "He was my prize! I caught him! I moved into his web! I should be allowed to feast on him!"

Snape moved to the fireplace and took the floo powder from the pot on the mantle. "Aurors!" he called out. 

A head appeared in the fire. "State the nature of your emergency, Hogwarts." The man's voice was bored, his manner one of someone going through the motions by rote.

"We have been attacked. No fatalities, but much of the faculty is unable to teach. We will need supply teachers for tomorrow, someone to take away the dying acromantula in the headmaster's study, and aurors to sort out who attacked us using this spider, and why."

"Oh, dear!" the man became much more alert. "Yes, we shall send someone right away. At once, I am sure. Do excuse me." The head vanished. 

"The headmaster has a direct link to the aurors," Granger realized. “That's another reason why you didn't want to contact them before—if they came through the floo here they would walk right into it, and if they had not taken the report seriously, or if they were compromised....”

Snape said, "She says wizards are involved, at least two. It implies that someone here at Hogwarts may be a part of this. She suggested that a plan would be in place when the eggs hatched. This is not just a acromantula plot, and time seems to be of the essence. I don't have the resources to investigate this. We have done our part. We need to turn it over to the authorities and go sleep."

"Yes!" Ron said fervently.

"Weasely and Snape have agreed about something. The world is going to end," Draco pointed out. 

Snape ignored it. "Right now, the two of you need to take some paper and a quill from the headmaster's desk and write out a letter to the Animagus register. Explain that because of the situation at the school you are not allowed to leave to register, but you will do it as soon as permitted. Send it off by owl before you sleep." Ron heaved himself up, grabbed Draco's hand and pulled. Everyone was staring at that, but he ignored them. The two of them settled at the desk, Draco sitting on the corner, Ron conjuring a chair and then sitting, writing out their letters. While they were still writing, the aurors arrived.

The large man in auror robes who headed the contingent stepped from the floo first, followed by five others. The leader stood staring at the spider.

"Gods, I didn't know they got that big!" he said, and then, belatedly, "Oscar Brushfeather, head of this investigation. You are?" he was facing Snape now, although nervously casting glances at the acromantula all the while.

"Professor Snape, temporarily acting as headmaster until a more qualified person is appointed. Both Headmaster Dumbledore and his deputy, Minerva McGonnagal, are in the hospital wing." Snape gave a polite bow and the short version of events of the last day. Upon finding out the spider was dosed with the truth drug, Brushfeather assigned one auror to question it. Then he turned back to Snape.

The self-appointed temporary headmaster of Hogwarts said, "Please question these young men and women briefly if you need to, and send them to bed. They have been up all night," Snape said. "I will remain to answer what I can, but I must confess to also wanting my bed."

"I'll stay, too," Harry said, putting his hand out to the auror. "Harry Potter," he introduced himself. They watched the auror shake his hand, his manner respectful. 

Ron had finished his letter and sat watching the elegant fingers of Malfoy's hand as he finished his letter. "I used to be jealous of Harry's fame. Now I'm glad to leave him to it. I'd rather be the one going home to bed."

"I thought you wanted to be an auror?" Draco said as he folded his letter and placed it in an envelope. He handed one over to Ron, who muttered an absent thanks and sealed his own letter inside. 

Ron printed carefully on the envelope. "Yeah. I'm going to try."

"You don't wish to observe how they work?" Draco asked.

"I want to crawl into my bed. For a year."

The room was getting crowded. The aurors sent for more aurors. The young men were evicted from the chair as a tall, well muscled woman took over the desk. She ordered the students in the room to line up. Because of working on their letters, Ron and Draco ended up near the end of the line. When it was his turn, Ron finally had an opportunity to report about the encroaching forest, and get a properly horrified response. He also pointed out that as acromantula from the Forbidden Forest go, this one wasn't even very big. The woman looked over at the monster still tied up in the middle of the room and said, "I didn't realize," in a faint voice.

It was an hour before the last of the students were released to return to their dormitories.   
Weasley and Malfoy walked up to the owlry, and mailed off their letters. "So much for plans to just enjoy my animagus form for awhile before registering." Malfoy said.

"It was important to rescue the headmaster. You're a hero," Ron teased.

"Right." Draco flashed a couple of fingers in his direction. Ron gave him a shove to the shoulder. They started down the steps. "I really want a mouse," Draco said suddenly. 

"Well, don't. Not inside the castle. Who knows who it could be," Ron said. His hand came up to cover a yawn. 

"Let's go back to the guest room," Draco said next.

"Are you crazy? If we go missing now, the entire castle will be torn apart looking for us. They'll think an acromantula got us!" Then his eyes lit up and he stopped on the stair. "You want to be with me!" he exclaimed.

"So?" Draco made his tone gruff. It wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to admit out loud, but he really wanted to snuggle into a nice warm bed with the nice warm Weasley. 

"Enough to come sleep with me in Gryffindor tower?"

"They'd kill me," Draco said with certainty.

"Not necessarily. I'll fix it so they won't, and we'll put protective spells around the bed. Please?"

He could not resist the warm begging eyes, or the big hand on his shoulder.

"Insane," he said.

"The whole day's been insane," Ron replied. "Come sleep with me. Please?"

"Fine." He'd lost his mind. The sex hadn't been that good. Well, it had, but was it worth leaving a message with his head of house actually saying he was bedding down with Weasely? He turned around.

"Where are you going?" Ron asked anxiously.

"I'll just owl Snape. I don't fancy hunting up a Slytherin prefect to say I'll be napping with a Gryffindor."

"Oh. Brilliant. Do you suppose the rest of the castle is having classes?" Ron asked as he followed Draco back. Draco took a piece of parchment from the pile in the corner, and Ron transfigured a feather into a proper quill and handed it to him. 

"Ink?" Draco suggested, waving the quill around.

"Oh, right." Ron's wand tapped the bench, and a small bottle of ink slid out from a niche in the wall. Draco penned a few words and folded the note, and tied it to a school owl. They watched it fly off before they once again started down the stairs. They didn't say much all the way down the owlry stairs.

They met Hermione Granger on the way up to the Gryffindor tower. "Oh! I'm so glad to see you both," she said, with far too much animation for someone who had been up all night. "I need to warn you about snails."

"Snails," Ron repeated.

"Don't eat them, ever, in your weasel forms. Raw, they carry parasites," she went on with a nod.

"Parasites." Draco echoed.

"I read about them once," she explained. "They travel up to the brain from the stomach and live out the rest of their life cycle there eating the brain tissue. It's very uncomfortable for the weasels."

Draco mentally gave up escargot on the spot. 

"Thanks, Hermione, I didn't know that," Ron said.

"You're welcome." They had arrived at the portrait of the fat lady. Ron mumbled the password and they stepped in through the round door. Hermione gave them a very odd look.

It was clear that students had been sent back from class or had never been allowed to go. Almost a hundred Gryffindors turned to look as they came in. The room went silent, and then a babble of voices started up.

"Hey!" Ron yelled, to get their attention. When the room was mostly quiet again, he stood up on a low table and pulled Draco up to stand beside him. "We just got done taking out an acromantula and saving the headmaster."

"Not just you," Thomas shouted at him. 

"That's right," Ron shouted back. "People from all the houses worked together for it. Including Draco, here." The noise rose again. He yelled louder. "Shut up and listen!" he said rather rudely. It worked, though, and the room became quieter again. "Change," he whispered to Draco, who shrugged and did so. Ron's arms caught him in mid air and lifted him up. "This is my stoat!" He turned in place so that everyone could see the small animal in his hands. From the all sides of the room there came an "Aww!" mostly from the girls. Well, Draco thought, he was rather cute, even in this form. Especially in this form.

"This is my stoat, and I'm his weasel. Don't hurt my stoat. He's a reformed stoat. He's not going to make any trouble here. We're dead exhausted and going up to bed. Don't bother us." He jumped down from the table and headed for the stairs. He folded his big hand over his stoat and pulled him close to his chest. Everyone wanted to see, hands came out to pet him, but Weasley blocked them all. He realized that his fellow seventh years were climbing the stairs with them and blocking the worst of the reaching hands. Neville pulled the door to their room open, and Thomas and Finnigan pushed in after Ron, closing the door firmly behind them. 

"Where's Harry?" Neville asked.

"He was still up there making nice to aurors," Thomas answered. "Helping Snape. Which is almost as weird as you and Draco here," he said. 

Draco changed back into himself. "You all sleep in this one big room?" he asked, looking around, slightly horrified. Like first years?

"Everyone knows silencing spells and the like," Finnigan told him. "Curtains on every bed. What are you and Weasely planning, anyway?" he asked with a leer.

"Nothing you'll ever get to watch," Ron said, with a grin. "Go away. We are actually going to sleep," he added. He sat down on his bed and began to take off his shoes. With a scowl at the others, Draco did the same. Then they took off their robes and Draco scowled again because he was not going to strip down any further in front of Gryffindors. Ron nudged him over onto the middle of the bed, used his wand to close the curtains, and then as Draco did lumos, he finished off with the silencing and guarding spells. 

It was not as nice as his own bed, but it had warm blankets and two pillows. They contorted and twisted themselves out of their clothing and under the bedding. It was nice. Warm. Draco switched to stoat form, rubbed his body along Weasely's naked chest, and then changed back. 

"You naughty little beast," Ron said, and just to tease him, he did the same. He lay clasped to Draco's chest, making chirky purring sounds as the lovely hands drew along his entire body over and over. When he turned himself back into human, Draco kissed him, but it didn't lead to anything except a quick hug. Ron fell asleep almost at once.

Draco gave a soundless laugh. There was always tomorrow. Maybe they could go outside and catch mice and play in the sun. Unless they had more spiders to kill, or the aurors were keeping everyone inside. It didn't matter, he decided as he turned on his side and snuggled back against Ron. It didn't matter, as long as they were together. Weasel and stoat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this was planned as two stories, this one told from the point of view of Draco/Ron, and the other from Severus/Harry, each with a romantic element and with the story line continuing in the S/H segment to discover what the plot was and who was behind it. I won't be writing it, but anyone else who wants to tackle it is free to do so!


End file.
